TALLINN, January 11 (RIA Novosti) - Estonia's president has approved a law adopted Wednesday by the country's parliament on the demolition of Soviet war memorials, Toomas Hendrik Ilves's chancellery said Thursday.
Estonia's State Assembly passed the bill on a first reading in November 2006, paving the way for the dismantling of monuments to Soviet soldiers who died liberating the Baltic state from German invaders during the Second World War, but who are themselves seen by many Estonians as having been occupiers.
Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said that with the adoption of the law by the president, the country could now begin transferring the remains of Soviet soldiers currently buried near a monument to a Soviet liberator in downtown Tallinn.
"The reburials could be conducted from May to October. If someone is really discovered to have been buried there - and we are not sure of that - then the remains should be reburied in a cemetery," Ansip told a press conference.
Ansip reiterated his position on the Bronze Soldier monument in question. "My position has not changed. Memorials should unite people. But this specific monument in this specific place divides society, and I am convinced it should not be there," Ansip said.
Estonia declared its independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and joined NATO and the European Union in 2004.
The most senior member of Russia's upper house of parliament harshly criticized Estonia's legislature in November for passing the bill.
Speaking to reporters at the time, Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov said: "History does not forgive such immoral acts, such moral blunders."
He said the Russian parliament might respond by adopting a special resolution.
Earlier, the flamboyant ultranationalist lawmaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a deputy speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, suggested severing diplomatic ties with Estonia and imposing an economic blockade on the former Soviet republic.
Zhirinovsky, known for his outspoken statements, said the bill was an attempt to review the outcome of WWII, and that Russia should take a tough line with the "pro-Nazi state emerging on its borders."
The Russian leadership has repeatedly called the EU's attention to Estonia's attempts to glorify Nazi Germany, including with parades by former Nazi SS fighters, as well as to its discriminatory policies with respect to ethnic Russians who moved to the republic following its annexation by the Soviet Union in 1940.
Many members of Estonia's Russian community are denied citizenship and employment rights, and cannot receive an education in their native language.
