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Crimean leader asks local Tatars to remember all people ‘children of big family’

SIMFEROPOL, May 03. /ITAR-TASS/. Crimea’s acting Head Sergei Aksyonov said all ethnic groups on the peninsula should live not as accidental fellow travelers but as children of one big family.

“I would like to recall the wise words said by our fellow citizen, an outstanding enlightener of the Crimean Tatars, Ismail Gasprinsky: ‘All people should live not as accidental fellow travellers or neighbours but as children of a big family of nations’,” the CrimeaInform news agency quoted Aksyonov as saying on Saturday, May 3, congratulating Crimean Tatars on their Khydyrlez holiday.

He said work was underway at the federal and regional levels to improve social infrastructure and improve the quality of life in Crimea.

“The Council of Ministers and the local authorities feel the constant support of President Vladimir Putin and the government of the country. The presidential decree ‘On Measures to Rehabilitate the Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, Crimean Tatar, and German Peoples and on State Support for Their Revival and Development’ is already being fleshed out,” Aksyonov said, adding that a target republican programme was being drafted to support deported people up to the year 2020. “It will be implemented by all means,” he said.

Aksyonov said provocative actions by the supporters of former Crimean Tatar Majlis (parliament) Mustafa Dzhemilev to break through the Russian border in the north of Crimea were a crime.

“Law enforcement agencies are working under the laws of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Crimea. The breaking through the border by Crimean Tatars is a crime for which its organisers will be held accountable,” he said, adding that “this is nothing but a provocation aimed at destabilising the situation”.

Preliminary negotiations were conducted with Dzhemilev’s supporters earlier, during which the initiators of the action were briefed on the border crossing rules and told that no one would be allowed to enter Crimea for provocative purposes.

“Nevertheless, Dzhemilev is deliberately trying to create chaos and is pushing certain Crimean Tatars towards criminal offences,” Aksyonov said.

He said these actions would get a proper assessment from law enforcement agencies.

The State Council (parliament) of the Republic of Crimea has included Dzhemilev, who is a member of the Ukrainian Batkivshchina (Fatherland) party, in the list of persons whose presence on the peninsula is not advisable because of his anti-Crimean statements and actions.

When Dzhemilev tried to enter Crimea on Saturday, May 3, a group of his supporters made an attempt to break through the border-crossing point.