MOSCOW, March 5 (RIA Novosti) – The president of the Russian republic of Tatarstan traveled Wednesday to Crimea in southern Ukraine to meet with representatives of the Tatar community, which make up more than one-tenth of the peninsula’s population.
The Crimean parliament said in a statement that Rustam Minnikhanov was met in the administrative capital, Simferopol, by top local officials and the Russian consul.
Minnikhanov is due to hold talks with leaders of the local Tatar community, which has come out in support of the newly installed government in the national capital, Kiev.
The Crimean government, however, has rejected the authority of the leadership in Kiev, a stance that has raised concern of possible tensions between the peninsula’s ethnic Russia majority and Tatars.
