Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has paid attention to the fact that the UN Resolution “Situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (Ukraine)” passed by the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly also concerns the ban from compelling protected persons to serve in armed or auxiliary forces of occupying authorities.
“I want to emphasize, as it was not mentioned by our mass media, that the resolution claims a ban to compel protected persons to serve in armed or auxiliary forces of occupying authorities on the occupied territory,” Klimkin said in parliament on November 18.
He also recalled that the resolution urges the occupying authorities to ensure the proper and unimpeded access of international human rights monitoring missions and human rights nongovernmental organizations to Crimea.
The minister said that Ukraine would continue working to ensure the adoption of the resolution by the UN General Assembly.
On November 15, the UN General Assembly committee voted to adopt a resolution on human rights in Crimea. A total of 73 states voted for the document, 23 voted against, and 76 abstained. Some 41 states were co-authors of the resolution.
For the first time the official documents of the UN recognize the Russian Federation as an occupying power and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol as a temporarily occupied territory. In addition, the resolution confirmed the territorial integrity of Ukraine and reaffirmed the non-recognition of annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula.
The document also urges Russia to allow international human rights mechanisms, in particular the Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine,unimpeded access to Crimea in order to monitor human rights situation and asks theUnited Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a separate thematic report on the situation in the peninsula.
The approved resolution is an important diplomatic, political and legal mechanism through which Ukraine protects the rights of its citizens on the territory of temporarily occupied Crimea.
The resolution is expected to be adopted at a plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly in December 2016.
