President: Issue of Crimean Tatar autonomy must be agreed upon with indigenous population

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview published by the Ukrayinska Pravda online media outlet, Ukrinform reports.

"This is a very important step that the Crimea Platform should deal with: to study the legislation, amendments to the legislation, and to submit to the President of Ukraine a bill already agreed upon with the indigenous population of Crimea. I know that the previous authority had some developments. Are they agreed upon with my Office? No, they are not. Are they agreed upon with the Crimean Tatars? I do not know. I don't know whether this bill is normal," Zelensky said.

At the same time, the Head of State commented on the recently adopted law on indigenous peoples. According to the President, this is one of the important laws, "which tells the Crimean Tatars that this is their land in real action, without hints."

"I think it unites people who live there, who understand that this is their land, and it's not just the President who is talking about it, the law is already passed. That is why such steps are important so that the core of people who consider Crimea as their land and part of Ukraine does not disintegrate. The local occupation authorities and the Russian Federation, in particular, are doing everything possible to draw a line in Crimean society to divide these people. We must do the opposite so that people there understand that Crimea will be happy only in Ukraine," Zelensky stressed.

At an extraordinary sitting on July 1, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the Law of Ukraine "On Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine", initiated by President Volodymyr Zelensky. The corresponding decision was supported by 325 MPs.

The law determines the legal status of the indigenous peoples of Ukraine and establishes legal guarantees for the full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by persons belonging to the indigenous peoples of Ukraine enshrined in international law and the Constitution and laws of Ukraine.

The concept of "indigenous people of Ukraine" is defined as "indigenous ethnic community formed in the territory of Ukraine which has original language and culture, traditional, social, cultural, or representative bodies, is self-aware as the indigenous people of Ukraine, an ethnic minority in its population and has no state formation of its own outside Ukraine." According to this definition, the law stipulates that Crimean Tatars, Crimean Karaites, and Krymchaks are the indigenous peoples of Ukraine.

In accordance with the provisions of the legislative act, the indigenous peoples of Ukraine and their representatives have the collective and individual right to the full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms as defined in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and in international treaties, the binding nature of which was approved by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, as well as those provided for in the Constitution and laws of Ukraine.

The law also defines guarantees of legal protection from any actions aimed at: deprivation of signs of ethnicity and integrity as original peoples, deprivation of cultural values, eviction or forced relocation from areas of compact settlement in any form, forced assimilation or forced integration in any form, encouragement or incitement of racial, ethnic or religious hatred against the indigenous peoples of Ukraine.

The law guarantees the cultural, educational, linguistic, and informational rights of the indigenous peoples of Ukraine, as well as the rights of the indigenous peoples of Ukraine to sustainable development. The law also provides for the determination of the legal status of representative bodies of the indigenous peoples of Ukraine, their resource provision, as well as the issue of international representation.

ol