Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has reaffirmed Turkey’s support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, stressing that Russia’s return of Crimea to Ukraine is “a requirement of international law”, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Wednesday.
In a video message recorded for delegates to the fourth summit of the Crimea Platform, Erdoğan said that Crimea’s return to Ukraine aligned with international legal norms. “Our support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, and independence is unwavering. The return of Crimea to Ukraine is a requirement of international law,” he said.
Turkey has never recognised Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Erdoğan said, pointing out the “enduring pain experienced by Crimean Tatar Turks”, who have the right to live “freely, securely, and peacefully in their own homeland”.
Erdoğan thanked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and leader of the Crimean Tatars Mustafa Abdülcemil Kırımoğlu for organising the summit, marking the 80th anniversary of the Soviet deportation of the Crimean Tatars from the Crimean Peninsula.
The Crimea Platform, which took place in Kyiv on Wednesday, is a diplomatic summit initiated by Zelensky in 2021, the stated goal of which is to achieve the “de-occupation of Crimea and its peaceful return to Ukraine”.
“Ukraine does not trade its land and does not abandon its people,” Zelensky said in his speech at the summit, which was attended by EU and US officials, including UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Since its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia has been accused of multiple human rights violations on the peninsula, including the persecution of local residents for their political activity. The Russian authorities have also been accused of violating the rights of Crimean Tatars, an ethnic group indigenous to Crimea, including banning the Mejlis, its highest executive body, as an “extremist organisation” in 2016 and persecuting numerous Crimean Tatar activists and officials.