Crimea's Supreme Council proposes Russian be given second state language status

The Supreme Council of the Crimea (autonomous republic in Ukraine) has sent an address to Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, proposing the second state language status be given to Russian, the presidium of the Crimean parliament said on Saturday.

"Common centuries-old history of the Russian and Ukrainian people living in Ukraine, determines the Russian language not as a language of inter-ethnic communication only, but as the important means of access to world culture and science and to wide international information for millions of citizens as well. The problem of the Russian language is of particular importance for Crimea's present and future and for peace and inter-ethnic accord in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea," the document says.

Proceeding from "democratic principles of equality of nations, their cultures and traditions," the Crimean Supreme Council asks the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada to adopt a law introducing amendments to the Ukrainian Constitution and to grant the second state language status to Russian". "The experience of a number of countries where two or three state languages co-exist harmoniously prompts this most important action in order to develop humanistic traditions of the independent Ukraine," reads the address.

All in all, 75 of 100 deputies supported this document at a plenary meeting of the Crimean parliament in Simferopol.