Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin has called on the UN Human Rights Council to press on Russia to open access for international organizations to Crimea.

"The constant presence of international organizations, including the UN, the Council of Europe and the OSCE must be allowed on the peninsula to monitor the status of human rights. Our Council should urge the Russian Federation as the occupying power to open Crimea to conventional and monitoring mechanisms of international human rights organizations," Klimin said during his speech at the first session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday evening.

According to him, a comprehensive evaluation of the human rights situation in Crimea should be measured only by legal standards in accordance with existing international legal instruments, not by political considerations of the occupying authorities. "In this regard, we consider that the recent mission to Crimea of the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe may facilitate the permanent access to Crimea," Klimkin said.

In his speech, the minister said that under Russian occupation, Crimea has become a "gray zone" where injustice, terror, intimidation, kidnapping and torture prevail. "The occupying authorities commit systematic and large-scale violations of fundamental rights and freedoms, wage a hidden war against dissidents, destroy the signs of linguistic, religious and cultural identity of Ukrainians and the indigenous people of Crimea – Crimean Tatars," he said.

Surce: Interfax-Ukraine