Russia Needs Effective Nationalities Policy in Caucasus

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Subject: Russia Needs Effective Nationalities Policy in Caucasus

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Russia Needs Effective Nationalities Policy in Caucasus


Russia Needs Effective Nationalities Policy in Caucasus.
 
Itar-Tass
November 12, 1998
 
VLADIKAVKAZ, November 12 (Itar-Tass) - "The difficult socio-political
and socio-economic problems of the Northern Caucasus can be resolved
only on the basis of a thoroughly corroborated official nationalities
policy for that southern part of the Russian Federation, which would
take into account all the specific features of this important
geopolitical region," Vyacheslav Lagkuyev, the leader of "Our Ossetia"
inter-republican public movement, told Itar-Tass on Thursday. The
movement unites more than twenty national cultural centers and
societies. It exerts weighty influence on the socio-political life of
North Ossetia.
 
The leader of the movement expressed this view in connection with the
task set by the Russian President before the Russian government to
draw up a concept for the state's policy in the Northern Caucasus.
 
Lagkuyev claims that "the Russian leadership still has no clear-cut
state policy in the region". The Northern Caucasus is suffering not
only from ailments, typical for all of Russia, but also from its own
unresolved problems, he noted, referring to the smoldering ashes of
the senseless Chechen war, the Ossetian-Ingush conflict, and the
Dagestan confrontation. The fact that they have still not been cured,
negatively affects the socio-political life in the republic.
 
Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov's recent visit to Vladikavkaz, the
capital of North Ossetia, his meetings with local public leaders and
his talks with Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov gave grounds for hope
that the new Russian government is eager to normalize the situation in
the Northern Caucasus, to enhance the state's role in the settlement
of the inter-ethnic problems. "It is absolutely obvious that our
socio-economic programs cannot be implemented without a normal
political background, without peace and concord among the peoples,"
Lagkuyev stressed.
 
The difficult criminogenic situation also negatively affects the
regional situation. Therefore, efforts to combat crime brook no delay
in the Northern Caucasus. But it will be impossible to cope with this
task without the joint efforts of the subjects of the Russian
Federation and the federal authorities.
 
Touching on the latest nationalistic statements by Duma member General
Albert Makashov, the Chairman of the "Our Ossetia" movement said that
the people of his republic, which is inhabited by representatives of
more than ninety nationalities, "have received most negatively
Makashov's expressed views on inter-ethnic problems".

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