You're reading: Mohyliov: SBU should deal with Ukrainians involved in armed conflict in Syria

Simferopol - Crimean Prime Minister Anatoliy Mohyliov has said he believes that the competence of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is to identify any Ukrainian citizens involved in the armed conflict in Syria, because if there are such people, they pose a threat to national security. 

“I believe that SBU should deal with this issue, and this is in the SBU’s competence. If someone is involved in any military operations, but outside the jurisdiction of Ukraine, these people, in my opinion, are potentially dangerous, because they are going to hot spots,” he said at a press conference in Simferopol on Tuesday, while commenting on statements made by the SBU’s press center that intelligence agencies know that the Muslim community in Crimea and the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization, is campaigning for the need to provide assistance to the Syrian opposition.

“SBU must keep track of such facts and put these people under special surveillance in our country, because these people who are involved in illegal military operations pose, in my opinion, increased danger if they then return to Crimea. Therefore, SBU should carry out such work, and this is SBU’s work,” he added.

As reported, Syria’s Ambassador to Ukraine Mohamed Said Akil stated on September 4 that Ukrainian citizens were fighting on the side of anti-government forces in Syria.

“There are representatives of 83 countries, including Ukraine, among the terrorists,” the diplomat said, when asked whether recent reports saying that Ukrainian citizens, including Crimean Tatars, were involved in military operations in Syria were trustworthy.

The diplomat, however, did not mention the number of Ukrainians involved in the Syrian conflict. He said that the militants usually burn their dead, and it is difficult to collect such statistics.

Earlier, Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, MP Mustafa Jemilev said that he had been informed that several Crimean Tatars had gone to Syria to fight on the opposition’s side.

Jemilev stressed that the Mejlis disapproved of their departure for Syria and called on Crimean Tatars not to travel to the country.

He added that one should not speak about mass involvement of Ukrainian Tatars with the Syrian conflicts, as only several people had gone, of their own free will.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, in turn, rejected a statement made recently by the Syrian ambassador on the alleged participation of Ukrainian citizens in the Syrian conflict on the side of the armed opposition.

The ministry also said that it was surprised to hear the ambassador’s statement.

“Ukraine has many times declared its support for the settlement of the conflict in Syrian by exclusively political and diplomatic means. The Foreign ministry thinks that Akil’s statement was unacceptable and groundless, as well as inconsistent with the character of relations between the two states. We think that such a statement must be confirmed by official trustworthy facts, which are absent in this case,” the ministry’s information policy department said.