Installation of libgtk2.0-dev requests uninstallation of libssl-dev:i386

Ubuntu 11.10 on amd64.

The machine is intended as a development machine for both 32-bit and 64-bit applications.
The 2 environments, however, are not as independent as they should but often clash.
FIrst, Bug #881236 hit, then this.

libssl-dev:i386 is installed.

$ dpkg -l libssl-dev:i386
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Description
+++-========================-========================-================================================================
ii libssl-dev:i386 1.0.0e-2ubuntu4 SSL development libraries, header files and documentation

Then I try to run

$ sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libc6-dev:i386 linux-libc-dev:i386
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libatk1.0-dev libcairo-script-interpreter2 libcairo2-dev libexpat1-dev libfontconfig1-dev libfreetype6-dev
  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev libglib2.0-dev libice-dev libpango1.0-dev libpixman-1-dev libpng12-dev libpthread-stubs0
  libpthread-stubs0-dev libsm-dev libx11-dev libxau-dev libxcb-render0-dev libxcb-shm0-dev libxcb1-dev
  libxcomposite-dev libxcursor-dev libxdamage-dev libxdmcp-dev libxext-dev libxfixes-dev libxft-dev libxi-dev
  libxinerama-dev libxrandr-dev libxrender-dev x11proto-composite-dev x11proto-core-dev x11proto-damage-dev
  x11proto-fixes-dev x11proto-input-dev x11proto-kb-dev x11proto-randr-dev x11proto-render-dev x11proto-xext-dev
  x11proto-xinerama-dev xorg-sgml-doctools xtrans-dev zlib1g-dev
Suggested packages:
  libcairo2-doc libglib2.0-doc python-subunit libgtk2.0-doc libpango1.0-doc imagemagick
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  libssl-dev:i386 zlib1g-dev:i386
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libatk1.0-dev libcairo-script-interpreter2 libcairo2-dev libexpat1-dev libfontconfig1-dev libfreetype6-dev
  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev libglib2.0-dev libgtk2.0-dev libice-dev libpango1.0-dev libpixman-1-dev libpng12-dev
  libpthread-stubs0 libpthread-stubs0-dev libsm-dev libx11-dev libxau-dev libxcb-render0-dev libxcb-shm0-dev
  libxcb1-dev libxcomposite-dev libxcursor-dev libxdamage-dev libxdmcp-dev libxext-dev libxfixes-dev libxft-dev
  libxi-dev libxinerama-dev libxrandr-dev libxrender-dev x11proto-composite-dev x11proto-core-dev x11proto-damage-dev
  x11proto-fixes-dev x11proto-input-dev x11proto-kb-dev x11proto-randr-dev x11proto-render-dev x11proto-xext-dev
  x11proto-xinerama-dev xorg-sgml-doctools xtrans-dev zlib1g-dev
0 upgraded, 45 newly installed, 2 to remove and 9 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/14.2 MB of archives.
After this operation, 60.9 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

Of course not... I see no reason to uninstall libssl-dev:i386, which is needed for other purposes.