Crimea will continue its successful development as part of Russia, despite its "non-recognition." Kiev's water blockade can be considered a violation of Ukraine's human rights obligations, Alexander Lukashevich, Russia's Permanent Representative to the OSCE, said on Thursday.
"Crimea will still continue to develop successfully as part of Russia, despite all the "non-recognitions" and blockades. Kiev's criminal policy against the residents of the peninsula, including Crimean Tatars, only confirms the correctness of the democratic choice of the Crimeans in March 2014 to "return to their native harbor," Lukashevich told participants of the online meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council.
The Russian diplomat stressed that "Kiev's deliberate imposition of a water blockade of Crimea can be qualified as a violation by the Ukrainian side of its human rights obligations enshrined" in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
"Kiev's actions also contradict its obligations under the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes of 1992 and its Protocol on Water and Health of 1999 as well as the bilateral Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of Ukraine on the Joint Use and Protection of Transboundary Water Bodies of 1992," the Russian postpresident emphasized.
According to him, the coastal areas of Crimea are currently coping with the reduction of water resources, while the shortage of fresh water is particularly acute in Bakhchisaray and Simferopol districts of the Republic of Crimea, where the number of Crimean Tatars is more than 20%. "The basis of the economy of these territories is agriculture, in which representatives of the Crimean Tatar people are predominantly employed. It is the agrarian sector that is particularly painfully experiencing the water blockade. This is the real side of the "care" of Kiev and its curators from the European Union and the United States about the Crimean Tatars and the residents of Crimea in general," Lukashevich noted.
As the diplomat pointed out, the scale and effectiveness of the programs for the development of Crimea carried out by the Russian authorities "refutes the thesis imposed from the outside about discrimination of the Crimean Tatars in modern Russia." "In a country that cares about every people living in it and seeks to restore historical justice for repressed peoples, this is simply not possible. Just visit this dynamically developing region to see for yourself. Welcome to Crimea," summed up the Russian Permanent Representative to the OSCE.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Sergey Fadeichev / TASS
Based on materials from TASS