GAGAUZIA LEADERSHIP CALLS ON CC TO DECLINE REQUEST ON CANCELING RUSSIAN AS INTERLANGUAGE IN MOLDOVA

Gagauzia Bashkan [governor] Irina Vlah and Gagauzia Executive Committee submitted an address to the Moldovan Constitutional Court with an appeal to decline the Liberal MPs' request on canceling the status of Russian language as an interlanguage in Moldova.

Gagauzia's authorities request says that it is a matter of principle for region's citizens, as in accordance with the Law on Special Legal Status of Gagauzia (Gagauz-Yeri) and the Gagauzia Code, the Russian language is one of three official languages in the autonomy along with the Gagauz language and the Moldovan language.

"While addressing to republican public agencies, medical and social institutions, Gagauz people use the Russian language. Hundreds of thousands of Moldovan citizens of various nationalities, who do not master the Moldovan language well enough, got in the same situation", the GEC explains, saying that the Liberal deputies' request pursues narrow party electoral goals and divides the Moldovan society on the language basis.

"Besides, this request is aimed at forcing the Russian language and culture away from the country's political and cultural life, to create a new pretext for tension in Moldova-Russia relations", the document says. Its authors expect that the CC will take the only possible solution that will not allow Moldova returning into the state of interethnic confrontation and society polarization, as it happened at the border of 1980-1990s.

The Gagauzia authorities stressed that they reserve the right to use all the possible levers for protecting vitally important interests of autonomy citizens.