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Crimean Tatars plan to stage picket at US embassy in Moscow

The Crimean authorities will provide no assistance in the picket’s organization

SIMFEROPOL, September 8. /TASS/. Activists of the Crimean Tatar community have informed the Crimean authorities about their plans to go to Moscow to organize a picket in front of the US embassy, Crimea’s Deputy Prime Minister Ruslan Balbek told TASS on Tuesday.

"Today, a number of Crimean Tatar public figures informed us about their plans to set up an organizing committee to gather a group of Crimean Tatars who will picket the embassy of the United States in Moscow," he said. "People want to bring to notice of the international community, to the chief ‘architects’ of all global conflicts that both Mustafa Dzhemilev and Refat Chubarov are neither leaders of the Crimean Tatars nor the nation’s envoys they are claiming themselves to be."

The Crimean authorities, according to Balbek, will provide no assistance in the picket’s organization. "The Crimean government does not support such methods. There are other formats, such as dialogue, the use of the mass media to get the message across to the Western partners," he said.

The Crimean authorities say the current campaign against the former popular leaders stem from their anti-Russian and anti-Crimean activities. Thus, Dzhemilev and Chubarov told a news conference earlier of Tuesday that they planned to organize a food blockade of Crimea from the Ukrainian side. In response, Crimea’s head Sergey Aksenov told journalists his republic was ready for a possible food blockade.