KIEV, December 30. /TASS/. More than half of Ukraine’s population dislikes the country’s drift towards NATO and the declaration of Ukrainian as the country’s sole state language, the country’s former president, Viktor Yushchenko, told the daily Ukrainskaya Pravda in an interview. He is certain about the need for a national dialogue.
“If we talk about a policy that can abstractly be called the ‘Yanukovich policy,’ one should remember all the time that apart from Yanukovich there were invariably 12 million to 14 million Ukrainians behind that policy. If we would like to emerge the winners on the issue of national accord and national reconciliation, it is not Yanukovich that we should have in mind, but the 14 million whose mentality is close to Yanukovich’s. We should have a clear understanding of the strategic guideline, of our route, and to never forget that we should maintain a national dialogue,” he said.
Yushchenko acknowledges that the demand for enshrining the status of the Ukrainian language as the sole state one by no means enjoys the support of the country’s entire population.
“The one who may be campaigning for only one state language should be aware that more than half of the population disagrees,” Yushchenko said.
Similarly, more than half of the population dislike the idea of accession to NATO.
“If you press for a transformation of the model of security policy and of the model of collective European security, you have to remember that 60% will not understand you,” Ukraine’s third president believes.
Yushchenko argues that this lack of homogeneity is not a reason for conflicts inside society. “This cannot be our contradiction, it can be our distinction. And if you have a distinction, please make up a plan for uniting and achieving an integral whole.”