Ukraine urges international community to recognize deportation of Crimean Tatars as genocide
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry released a statement on the 75th anniversary of the deportation of Crimean Tatars from Crimea which calls for the international community to recognize the incident as a genocide, Radio Liberty reports.
“The global community’s recognition of the genocide against the Crimean Tatar people as defined by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide would be evidence not only of the restoration of historical justice, but would also serve to prevent such actions from being committed in the future against the Crimean Tatars or any other nation,” reads the statement from 17 May.
The Ukrainian ministry expressed its appreciation for the statement recently made by Latvia’s parliament that it does not recognize Russia’s occupation of Crimea, and considers the 1944 deportation of Crimean Tatars an act of genocide.
“For the sake of restoring historical justice, we call on our international partners to honor the innocent deportation victims and to condemn this crime of the totalitarian communist regime,” the statement reads.
Ukraine demands that Russia “cease the human rights violations in the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, immediately release all political prisoners, and ensure that as the occupier-state, Russia meets its obligations under international law”.
On 18 May, Ukraine and the rest of the world commemorated the victims of the 1944 deportation, when as many as 200,000 Crimean Tatars were transported away from the peninsula by the Soviet totalitarian regime.
Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, has declared 18 May the official Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Crimean Tatar Genocide.