PHOTO: Salon.com
This article originally appeared at Novosti.rs translated by Stevo Marjanović exclusively for SouthFront.
From a correspondent in Moscow.
Leadership of Ukraine does not give up on plans to return Crimea. The strategy consists of two parts: a political-diplomatic part and information part, said Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavel Klimkin. The first part of the strategy is taking place in order to preserve international support for Kiev, which wants to return the Crimea.
– Ukraine has the support of countries that do not recognize Crimea as a part of Russia and those countries introduced sanctions to Russia. Part of the job of Ukrainian diplomats is to maintain pressure on Russia. At the same time it is needed to push Russia in the framework of international conventions of marine law, conventions to combat terrorism and also to support the Ukrainian companies that are seeking compensation for the damage they had since the annexation of the Crimean peninsula – said Klimkin.
As for the second part of the strategy, Ukrainian minister said that it is necessary to explain to citizens of Crimea that the future is in Europe and not “under Russia’s temporary occupation”.
Unlike Klimkin, Interior Minister of Ukraine, Arsen Avakov said that the Crimea can be returned if they army and police are well prepaired.
– Our army and police are now weak. But if they are prepared well, we could gain pack peninsula – Arsen Avakov said.
Moscow does not react to the statements of the Ukrainian Minister Klimkin, who is an ethnic Russian, and Avakov who is Armenian. The Kremlin repeated that the issue of Crimea is resolved forever because the inhabitants of the peninsula voted in a referendum where they want to live. In addition, there are more and more people in the West who recall that the Crimea was part of the Russian Federation until 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred it to Ukraine. Then and now more than 60 percent of the population of Crimea were Russians.