MOSCOW, October 1. /TASS/. Spain’s authorities should mind that fighting own people may cause collapse of the state. It is necessary to have a dialogue with Catalans, not to consider them separatists, head of the international affairs committee at Russia’s upper house (Federation Council) Konstantin Kosachev said on Sunday in a comment on the Catalan independence referendum.
This polling, the senator said, like the earlier polling in Iraqi Kurdistan, "is another clear and evident clash of the basic principles the humanity follows: the territorial integrity and the right to self-determination."
"If the Spanish authorities continue considering the Catalans separatists, and further on even terrorists, if the dialogue will be limited by a number and location of polling stations still due to be blocked by the police - the conflict would be only developing, and the independence supporters in the breakaway region will only have more reasons," he wrote on Facebook.
Until it is too late, both Spain and Ukraine, like any other countries with similar problems, "should remember as soon as possible that a war against own people may cause collapse of the state, not its improving." "A state should be talking to its citizens, should reach accord. Like we are doing in Russia," he wrote.
Catalonia announced the independence referendum at the level of its government, without having agreed it with Madrid. In early September, the region’s authorities adopted two laws. The first law regulates the legal base for the independence referendum, and the second law offers regulations for the process of Catalonia’s independence from Spain.
Madrid claims the two laws and the referendum are not legal. The country’s constitutional court suspended both decisions. Spain’s authorities say the referendum would not take place and order the law enforcement forces to confiscate ballot boxes, ballots and other related materials.