SOCHI, May 16 (RIA Novosti) – The people of Crimea should not be pawns in disputes between Ukraine and Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday.
"There is one issue to which I should certainly draw your attention. We, including federal, regional and local authorities, are ready to work with all people who sincerely, and I’d like to emphasize this, want to ensure better living conditions for people who live in their own land," Putin said.
"We cannot allow the Crimean Tatar people to become a bargaining chip in any disputes, especially in international disputes, like the one between Russia and Ukraine," Putin said at a meeting attended by representatives of the Crimean Tatars Friday.
Everyone should keep in mind "that the Crimean Tatars are sharing their interests with Russia today," the Russian president said. "It’s inadmissible to protect the interests of other, third countries using the Crimean factor.”
Putin said that Russia will do everything in its power to make people feel like full-fledged owners of their land.
“Surely, we won’t be able to do this effectively without the Crimean Tatars, without those people who are interested in the development of these areas, without the support of the citizens who live there," Putin explained. The Russian president stressed that this concerns not only the Crimean Tatars, but representatives of all other nationalities residing in Crimea.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree last month on the rehabilitation of ethnic minorities who suffered during the repression of the Stalin era.
The Crimean Tatars, a historic people of the region, were deported en masse to Central Asia by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin 70 years ago. Although many of them returned in the early 1990s, they were unable to reclaim the land they had possessed before their deportation.
Many Crimean Tatars have taken over unclaimed land as squatters by building houses, farms and mosques. Ukrainian authorities have in the past failed to settle the land disputes.
Crimea, formerly a part of Ukraine, held a referendum on reunification with Russia on March 16 in reaction to dangerous nationalist rhetoric from the coup-imposed authorities in Kiev. Over 96 percent of voters in the region supported integration into the Russian Federation, and a treaty providing for reunification was signed on March 18.
