The Russian Foreign Ministry is dissatisfied with the Latvian referendum: they did not take into account the opinion of the "non -citizens", they did not allow observers from the Russian Federation

The Russian Foreign Ministry remained dissatisfied with the referendum about the status of the Russian language, held in Latvia . More than 70% of citizens of the country voted against the Russian language, however, the Foreign Ministry indicates that the results "do not fully reflect the mood in the country. In addition, the Foreign Ministry is unhappy that Russian observers from the Public Chamber were not allowed into Latvia.

“The holding of a popular vote in Latvia to introduce linguistic amendments to the country's constitution is demonstrated by the seriousness of this problem,” emphasized the official representative of the Foreign Ministry Alexander Lukashevich. “High activity at the referendum of Latvia citizens who consider Russian to the family clearly indicates their disagreement with the course of building a mono -ethnic society.”

“At the same time, the results of the referendum are far from fully reflecting mood in the country,” the ITAR -TASS Foreign Ministry quotes. “This is due to the fact that 319 thousand people of the so -called“ non -citizens ”were deprived of the rights to express their opinion, even though many of them were born or live in Latvia for a long time.”

“We hope that the voice of the Russian -language population of Latvia will be heard both by the ruling circles of this state and international organizations designed to ensure the fulfillment of generally accepted norms in the field of compliance with the legal rights and interests of national minorities,” said the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Lukashevich also added: in Moscow it caused "bewilderment that the Latvian CEC on the recommendation of the country's Foreign Ministry did not provide the delegation of the public chamber of Russia at the referendum." “We believe that we are talking about ignoring Riga of his international obligations,” the official announced.