Assembly of People of Russia opens its congress in Moscow

The sixth congress of the Assembly of the Peoples of Russia starts its work in Moscow. The congress was unveiled by the Assembly’s chairman and acting head of the Republic of Dagestan, Ramazan Abdulatipov. “National policy is such a serious issue, which needs control of the society, civil society,” he said in his opening remarks on Monday. Abdulatipov said in those regions, where branches of the Assembly were opened, less interethnic conflicts were registered. “This institute has been actively implementing the state national policy, even when state bodies stopped this work, the assembly did not give it up,” he said adding the Regional Development Ministry acts as the assembly’s effective partner. “We can make our contribution to programmes that are now being developed by the Regional Development Ministry,” he said. Regional Development Minister Igor Slyunyaev also spoke at the congress highly assessing the Assembly’s role in strengthening interethnic accord and civil society. “For its not so long history the Assembly of the Peoples of Russia has become one of the biggest and authoritative structures of civil society, which activities are targeted at strengthening interethnic accord, assisting development of languages and culture and patriotic education of the youth,” he said. The messages to the Assembly that marks its 15th anniversary on Monday were also sent by Federation Council speaker, Valentina Matviyenko, and State Duma speaker Sergei Naryshkin. The congress brought together 150 delegates representing around 100 peoples from 80 regions of Russia.