Crimea's Tatars fear a repeat of history

The Tatars are one of the oldest ethnic groups in Crimea. And they're warning President Putin not to underestimate resistance to any Russian bid to take over the semi-autonomous region. Their historic ally Turkey, is closely watching events on the peninsula. Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught reports from Istanbul.

[neuralvibes]

Nice propaganda piece by a British journalist... Britain fought with the Ottomans against Russia in the Crimean war in order to preserve the brutal Ottoman subjugation of Balkan Christians, which Russia sought to end by breaking the Ottoman stranglehold over the Black Sea region. Now Britain would like to rekindle these old flames of British-Ottoman love for a new battle against Russia. However, Anita McNaught will witness her propaganda piece come to naught ;)

Crimea is an ethnic Russian majority autonomous region, transferred under dubious circumstances to Ukraine by Khrushchev in the 1950's, but nevertheless ethnically still Russian and legally speaking autonomous to make its own policies. Crimean Tatars are not in a position to impose their will on anyone as they are not the majority population. If this is an issue between anyone, then it's an issue between Russia and Ukraine, not USA, Britain, Turkey, or self-appointed Tatar spokesmen.

Again, to address this propaganda piece, Russian Putin is not a Georgian Stalin (maybe NATO's mascot former Georgian president Saakashvili is) and Britain is not an empire anymore that can carry out gunboat diplomacy. Putin is a democratically elected leader and Britain is a parody of an empire about to lose Scotland at "home" while it fights imaginary battles over Crimea and the Falkland islands overseas...

[petarslo]

I was in Tatarstan in Russia and I was at Crimean Tatars in Crimea. Russian Tatars are far more developed.

[Vierotchka]

But Russians were there before the Tatars.