Mezentseva announces creation of “Crimean platform” at PACE

The head of the permanent delegation of the Verkhovna Rada to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Maria Mezentseva ("Servant of the People" party) announced the creation of an informal "Crimean platform" at the PACE platform.

Interfax-Ukraine reports.

"In the new strategy of our delegation… we have an initiative on an informal platform to support the Crimea and human rights, which is one of the PACE outposts. An informal platform to support Ukraine has already been established as the "Crimean platform." It'll have the same name on the PACE platform. And we will… inform potential partners, PACE deputies, about this initiative so that they can join this platform," Mezentseva stated at an online roundtable on the human rights situation in the occupied Crimea ahead of the PACE winter session on Wednesday.

According to the People's Deputy, the new platform at the PACE will work in parallel with the existing thematic platform "Baltic-Plus."

"My colleagues and I thought we should assign Crimea, respect for human rights and the situation on the peninsula to another dimension, and actively work on this track," the deputy said.

Mezentseva stressed that the human rights situation on the Crimean peninsula was deteriorating, in particular, facilitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which the permanent delegation of the Verkhovna Rada would once again inform the PACE.

As previously reported, Mezentseva spoke in favor of involving PACE representatives in the "Crimean platform." "We have a certain opinion that the Crimean Platform should also extend to the PACE," Mezentseva told Interfax-Ukraine.

She stressed that the Crimean issue remained acute and relevant and wasn't removed from the agenda of the Ukrainian delegation to the PACE, like the war in Donbas as well."

The PACE winter session will take place on January 25-28 in a hybrid format (online and in-person) in Strasbourg.