Window on Eurasia: Turkey Reaffirms Its Support for Crimean Tatars and will Send Delegation to Occupied Peninsula

Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, November 11 – Even as Moscow and the Russian occupation authorities continue their efforts to disorder and oppress the Crimean Tatars, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlyut Cavushoglu in the course of a meeting in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Ankara will continue to work with Kyiv to defend that nation.

 

            Cavushoglu, who was in Kyiv for bilateral strategic planning talks said that Turkey fully supports the position of Kyiv and the international community about Russia’s violation of its international obligations and human rights in Crimea and that Ankara will never recognize “the illegal annexation of Crimea” (qha.com.ua/ukraina-i-turtsiya-dogovorilis-sovmestno-zaschischat-prava-krimskih-tatar-141117.html).

 

            In advance of his meeting with the Ukrainian president, the Turkish foreign minister said that Turkey plans to “send an unofficial delegation to Crimea in order to assess how the local population is living.” He added that Turkey opposes the Russian occupation of the Ukrainian peninsula and does not want to see anyone there suffer (qha.com.ua/turtsiya-napravit-v-krim-delegatsiyu-dlya-otsenki-polojeniya-krimskih-tatar-141093.html).

 

            That delegation, like the Turkish government as a whole, he continued, will coordinate closely with Kyiv and will focus particularly on the status of the Crimean Tatars with whom Turkey is linked by culture, religion and language. “Turkey, with the assistance of Ukraine, will constantly stand with the Crimean Tatars.”