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Kyrgyz leader calls for eradicating roots of ethnic conflicts

Atambayev recalled that he had approved a strategy to enhance unity and interethnic relations in Kyrgyzstan

BISHKEK, June 7 (Itar-Tass) - Any causes provoking bloody ethnic clashes in Kyrgyzstan should be eradicated, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev said in his public message on the occasion of the third anniversary of the ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010.

“We cannot say that today all causes were eradicated. It is necessary to root them away. And we cannot do with this only through expressing good intentions and calling for peace and accord,” the president was quoted by Kyrgyzstan’s Kabar news agency as saying.

Atambayev recalled that he had approved a strategy to enhance unity and interethnic relations in Kyrgyzstan and set up the agency for local self-government and interethnic relations.

Moreover, the Central Asian republic takes efforts to upgrade the legislative base and create a structure responsible for the implementation of interethnic and language policies and infrastructure development in urban and rural areas.

“We’ve started taking practical measures to strengthen the unifying role of the official language and to carry out a well-balanced language policy. We should recognize that it is impossible to unify people without reinforcing positions of the state language. However, we should not restrict opportunities that Russian language skills as the second official language and other language skills open for our youth,” Atambayev said.

“Kyrgyzstan as a multinational state includes representatives of over 100 ethnic groups. Uzbeks, Russians, Kazakhs, Dungans, Uyghurs, Turks, Tatars and Bashkirs, Koreans and Germans reside side by side with Kyrgyz people on equal rights. We have one motherland, one destiny and common future. We have one responsibility for all - to strengthen and develop our country and make it comfortable for living,” he said.

Atambayev called for “preventing any manifestations of ethnic nationalism and separatism and to create an atmosphere of interethnic tolerance, peace and accord in the society.”

On June 10-13, 2010, several thousands were wounded as a result of the ethnic clashes in Kyrgyzstan’s southern regions.