On December 19, the UN General Assembly supported the resolution ‘Situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine’ proposed by the Ukrainian delegation.
According to the vote results, 7o countries supported the Ukrainian resolution, 76 country delegates abstained, 26 voted against, including Russia and Belarus.
According to Ukraine’s Permanent Mission to the UN, the resolution confirms there is an armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
The document demands that Russia fulfill the interim decision of the International Court of Justice on the restoration of rights and freedoms of Ukrainian citizens on the peninsula. In particular, Russia is expected to ensure the educational process in Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages and provide access to Crimea for the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission.
Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko welcomed the adoption of the resolution and thanked ‘real friends of Ukrainian Crimea’.
Irina Gerashchenko, Ukraine’s representative in the humanitarian subgroup of Trilateral Contact group on Donbas, has criticized Belarus’ voting:
“There is a decidedly mixed picture: it is Minsk that hosts talks on the peaceful settlement of the situation in Donbas; the country [Belarus] claims to be neutral and sets itself up as a certain peacekeeping mission. In this case, they should keep their neutral status – not playing into the hands of the Kremlin – on all venues and during all votes,” she stressed.
belsat.eu
