Solution of Russian interethnic problems starts with studying their roots, debaters on Putin's article on national issue believe

Russia needs an authority to deal with interethnic relations; and in order to solve national problems, we should first find their roots - these are the ideas expressed by public activists, including those from the Russian Congress of Caucasian Nations (RCCN), who took part in the roundtable on "Russia's Interethnic and Inter-Confessional Challenges", held on January 24 in Moscow at the RIA "Novosti".

The invited experts discussed the article of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin "Russia: Nationalities Issue", which focuses on problems and issues of migration policy, interethnic conflicts and other topics. This article was published in "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" (Independent Newspaper) on January 23.

According to experts, the article is the foundation of Mr Putin's election programme as a presidential candidate from the "Edinaya Rossiya" (United Russia) Party. The Premier offers, among other things, to criminalize violations of the migration legislation. Besides, Vladimir Putin called for establishment of a special federal-level structure to deal with nationalities' matters; he treated the attempts to advocate the idea of building a Russian "national", mono-ethnic state, as the shortest way towards destruction of Russian statehood.

In their debates on Vladimir Putin's article experts have pointed out his intention to address the problem of ethnic hatred and intolerance as a positive point, and on the negative side - the undisclosed topic of "migration".

He finds it reasonable to set up a body to deal with interethnic relations and writes about it in his article. "Every nation should be represented in it, irrespective of its remoteness and population," said the RCCN representative.

Speaking about the shortcomings of the publication, Mr Totorkulov supported his colleagues by saying that "the issue of migration wasn't disclosed."

"I'm more than confident that the author means external migration, not the internal one, because our constitution has fixed the right of free travel across the country. Labour mobility is a key to successful economy, while returning the serfdom or pale line will mean come back to deep past and may blow up the situation," said Totorkulov.

Taras Shamba, President of the International Association of Abkhaz-Abaza People, said: "We need to objectively identify the reasons of the problem. When we know what lies in the basis of nationalities' issues, and what motivates us to deal with them, then it will be clear what sort of mechanism we need to settle, consider and implement this programme and this plan," he said.

Earlier, the "Caucasian Knot" wrote that the idea to establish the Ministry for Nationalities, voiced out during the programme "Conversation with Vladimir Putin" on December 15, 2011, aroused support in Northern Caucasus.