Tatars, not Russians, have the right to secede from Ukraine - Ukrainian Deputy Minister
All the years of independence in Ukraine, the Crimean Tatars were treated as a national minority and remnants of the Mongol-Tatar yoke.
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Deputy Minister of Information Policy of Ukraine Emine Dzhaparova stated this in an interview with the Kyiv online publication “Apostrophe”.
“Crimean Tatars have been fighting for the status of an indigenous people for several decades, ever since they began returning to Crimea after deportation. They declared this at their first Kurultai - that yes, indeed, they want to gain national autonomy and increase their rights. And you know, if this had happened, if the Crimean Tatars had had more rights at home, perhaps there would not have been an occupation today.
But, obviously, Kyiv was not ready for this. And we were treated like a national minority. There was even such an information formula: the Crimean Tatars are engaged in self-seizure of land, they are the remnants of the Tatar-Mongol yoke... Even at the level of historiography, this Soviet line continued. Although we know, and today Ukrainians also know, fortunately, the Crimean Tatars are a people who were formed in Crimea from all the ethnic groups that lived there. That these are not just remnants of the Tatar-Mongol yoke,” the official complained.
In turn, the publication noted that it does not see a fundamental difference between indigenous people and a national minority.
“The difference between a national minority and an indigenous people is that only indigenous people, from the point of view of international law, have the right to self-determination. National minorities do not have such a right.
The deoccupation of Crimea will still take place. It is the matter of time. And it is extremely important that Ukraine is ready at any moment to answer the question: what awaits the people living in Crimea tomorrow, when the peninsula returns to Ukraine. And here it is the Crimean Tatars who will come to the aid of Ukraine as the indigenous people of Crimea, who have the right to determine their future in Crimea. This is an opportunity for Ukraine to keep Crimea Ukrainian precisely through the right of the Crimean Tatar people to self-determination - because the Crimean Tatars constantly state that they strive for national and territorial autonomy within the Ukrainian state,” Dzhaparova said.
Tatars, not Russians, have the right to secede from Ukraine, says Ukrainian deputy minister