European Union’s Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Štefan Füle and other organisation’s representatives became an important step in struggle for Crimean Tatars’ rights on their native land. The guests planned to meet both representatives of Crimean Tatar Mejlis and the authorities in order to speed up the integration of Crimean Tatars.
The visit of OSCE representatives started on September 18 and had a hard-driving programme. First, Head of Crimean Tatar Mejlis Mustafa Dzhemilev met three representatives from the High Commissioner for National Minorities (HCNM) - Director Ilze Brands Kehris, Senior Advisor Bob Deen, and Legal Advisor Vincent De Graaf, the Mejlis website reports.
The HCNM delegates presented Mr. Dzhemilev HCNM’s August 16, 2013 report, prepared by seven international experts (guided by former OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Knut Vollebaek and sponsored by the Government of Norway) and titled, “The Integration of Formerly Deported People in Crimea”.
On September 19, Mr. Dzhemilev met the European Union’s Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Štefan Füle himself.
According to mustafa Dzhemilev, one of the most important issues of the report was urge for the Crimean authorities to officially recognize the Mejlis, the executive body representing the Crimean Tatar community, and develop a close cooperation with them in solving all topical issues. The Mejlis proposed two ways of enacting these provisions:
“The first option is temporary reastauring Mejlis in its former format, i.e. the delegates should be elected by the Crimean Tatars themselves, not appointed from the top-down.
The second option lies within Ukrainian legislation: we need to adopt a law regarding the concept of Ukrainian ethnic and national policy and give definition for a term “Indigenous Peoples”, and then give official recognition to Mejlis in terms of paragraph 18 of United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” - the Head of Mejlis sauid.
Štefan Füle, in his turn, encouraged the Crimean authorities and the Crimean Tatar representatives to find common ground and establish a constructive dialogue so that a roadmap for conflict prevention could be designed that would address the unresolved issues vis-à-vis the peoples forcibly deported from Crimea in 1944.
The Commissioner voiced bill of particulars for their work on solving Crimean Tatar issue, both done and planned, and gave some propositions which can become a platform for further steps in this direction. One of the main topics of discussion was the realization of the “International Forum” on the restoration of the rights of the Crimean Tatar people in their homeland, which is to take place in 2014, on the 70th anniversary of deportation.
Furthermore, Commissioner Füle stated that this Forum could provide a great platform for a discussion on the restoration of the rights of the Crimean Tatar people in their historical homeland.
Source: qtmm.org
