The President’s office called on the Mejlis not to speculate on the Ukrainian refugees’ return from Syria, but to address the Crimea issue

Because of the objective circumstances, some representatives of the Mejlis cannot know about the activities related to the return of our citizens from Syria to Ukraine. First, diplomats, special services and intelligence work professionally on this issue.

The Office of the President reports.

"Obviously, we cannot reduce the return of people from that area of conflict to simple "emotional images of women and children" in the media. Each of the adults who stayed in the region controlled by ISIS has a personal story. In addition, to evacuate our citizens from the Al-Hol camp, the special Ukrainian agencies are taking several practical measures, including covert ones, to monitor the security situation and find potential ways to evacuate.

The unconditional duty of our state is to save each of our citizens in life-threatening and health-threatening circumstances. So, there's no doubt that Ukraine will definitely return every Ukrainian expressing such a wish home. But we must also remember the safety of all citizens of Ukraine, both at home and abroad. The more so, the vast majority of detained Ukrainian refugees in Syria are from the temporarily occupied Crimea, where their close relatives live.

Public disclosure of information about our citizens in Syria can definitely lead to harassment, detention of their relatives, and persons with whom they had contact in the Crimea by Russian ad hoc bodies.

Therefore, we call on the representatives of the Mejlis not to politicize the work of Ukrainian intelligence, special services, and diplomats. On the other hand, we still expect the Majlis to do proper work on those issues that fall within their competence. In particular, it applies to creating an international platform proposed by Volodymyr Zelenskyi to discuss the de-occupation of Crimea and promoting this initiative on any world platforms, including media. This is the direction that requires maximum action by the Majlis representatives."

The OP points out that the President pays a lot of attention to the problems of the Crimean Tatar community, takes active steps to resolve issues protecting the rights of our people in Crimea, and to release many "Crimean" prisoners from confinement.

"He proposes and implements programs for reintegrating the Crimean Tatar population forced to move to mainland Ukraine. There is plenty to keep you occupied here and now. First, in the Crimean Tatar community interests. There's no place to speculate on complicated security issues using a certain political severity of the election period.

Our common task should be to work out solutions for the return of Crimea to the control of the Ukrainian state as soon as possible," the OP press relations service writes.

Earlier, the Head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people Refat Chubarov called on the Ukrainian authorities to help return home 100 Ukrainian women and children from the Syrian camp Al-Hol. He noted that the Majlis tried to work on the return of refugees from areas such as Syria, "in the cabinet council mode", so as not to harm people who turned to them for help. However, since August last year, this work has slowed down and then stopped, while the Majlis receives two or three appeals for help every week.

"As of May 2019, we have compiled a list of 72 people, 43 of whom are minors from birth to 17. We realized that this problem is becoming so large that it is urgent to bring in the Ukrainian state. There were relevant appeals to government agencies," Chubarov explained.

"I would like the Ukrainian actual power, and the one that rules Ukraine today, to exercise all its influences based on the Constitution, the laws of Ukraine, so it can exercise its powers here. I cannot agree that when we save citizens, we have to divide them into categories," he stressed.