Interfax: Kyiv consistently pursued line of pitting Tartars against other Crimean ethnicities – Aksyonov

Sergei Aksyonov file photo, adapted from image at kremlin.ru

MOSCOW. April 21 (Interfax) – When building its ethnic policy the government must take into account that the many years of propaganda hysteria which was stoked in order to instill hatred towards Russia in Crimean Tartars did not pass without a trace, Crimean governor Sergei Aksyonov said.

“Kyiv and its allies in Mejlis consistently pursued the line towards pitting the Crimean Tartars against the other Crimea ethnicities, primarily Russians. The issue of deportation was also used to that end. The Ukrainian government, which never burdened itself with moral principles, was set to turn a whole nation into a weapon of countering ‘Crimean separatism’,” Aksyonov wrote in an article published in the Izvestiya newspaper on Tuesday.

The central government’s national policy in Crimea was built on the divide-and-rule principle, whoever was the president, he said.

However, it is obvious that the situation in inter-ethnic relations has significantly improved in the past year, he said.

“On April 21 the Crimeans will be celebrating the Day of the Revival of the rehabilitated people of Crimea for the first time. A year ago today Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree ‘On the rehabilitation of the Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, Crimean-Tartar and German peoples and state support for their revival and development’,” the governor recalled, while stressing that “this was done one month after Crimea’s reunification with Russia.”

Aksyonov also said that since it rejoined Russia the peninsula has been returning to its natural state of cultural and religious diversity and equality.

An important step in this direction will be the creation of a Public Crimean-Tartar Television and Radio Company (OKTRK). The government is to allocate over 170 million rubles for this purpose.

[featured image is file photo, adapted from image at kremlin.ru]

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