Interfax: Parliament speaker justifies Crimea’s merger with Russia

(Interfax – October 8, 2014) The world should see the difference between Ukraine’s de facto annexation of Crimea in the 1990s and the self-identification of the people of Crimea in 2014, Russian State Duma speaker Sergey Naryshkin believes. He was speaking at a session of the Federation Council legislators council presidium session on 8 October, as reported by Russian privately-owned news agency Interfax on the same day.

“Not all the facts – even obvious ones – have yet received an international assessment. For example, contrary to the will of the people the Ukrainian authorities violated both international and national law. This is why today a detailed analysis of the legal history of Crimea is important – for everyone in the world to understand the difference between the events in the early 1990s – in effect the annexation of Crimea – and the self-identification of the people of Crimea in 2014,” he said.

During 23 years the authorities in Kiev pursued the “divide and rule” policy, he added. “They placed their stake on creating inter-ethnic tension, mistrust and enmity. They encouraged historical speculation and an aggressive style in politics,” Naryshkin said.

The Ukrainian authorities were not interested in resolving the problems either Russian citizens of Crimea or Crimean Tatars or representatives of any other ethnicities were facing. “Kiev needed a peninsula where residents would not be unable to join forces and solve acute political, social and economic tasks on their own,” Naryshkin said.

On the contrary, Russia made its fundamentally different position clear from the very start, Naryshkin said, adding that in late November a group of State Duma deputies intended to visit Crimea where together with local legislators they would discuss the legal integration of two constituent parts and problems of the transition period, the agency said.