European Parliament's resolution on Crimea leaving no space for dialogue — lawmaker

MOSCOW, February 4. /TASS/. European parliament's resolution on Crimea does not leave space for dialogue with Russia, Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of foreign policy committee in the upper house of Russian parliament said on Thursday.

"The European Parliament has passed a resolution on Crimea and naturally the one marked by categorical overtones that leave no space for dialogue," he wrote on his page in Facebook on Thursday.

Besides, the document passed by the MEPs says cooperation will be resumed exclusively on the condition of Crimea's "return" to Ukraine, Kosachev indicated.

"Which probably means never?" he asked with a rhetoric emphasis. "Reading such bellicose resolutions makes sense only by way of regular monitoring of the current situation at European organizations."

Kosachev believes the manifestation of "tender care for the rights of ethnic groups and minorities in Crimea and the appeals to Russia as an 'occupationist power' to ensure the guarantees of multicultural development of the ethnic groups and minorities living on the peninsula and full respect for the Ukrainian, Crimean Tatar and other cultures and languages" look particularly insincere now that the Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages have received an absolutely equal status.

"That’s something the minorities just couldn’t get in Ukraine," Kosachev said.

"A logical question arises then, namely, who is the occupationist power in this particular case?" he said. "And where were you, dear European counterparts, a couple of decades ago when we would tell you about the mass encroachments on the rights of non-Ukrainians in Crimea and not only there? Where were your values and principles then?"

The appropriate parties for discussing the rights of citizens of any ethnic identity in Crimea are the Crimeans themselves and the leaders of the state Crimea is part of.

"You call in your resolution to respect the free and sovereign choice of the Crimeans to walk down the European pathway, but please respect the Crimeans’ choice not to go to Europe together with those who never asked them where to go," he said.

European Parliament adopted a resolution on Thursday where it ties up the lifting of sanctions, which the West introduced against Russia after Crimea’s reunification, to the handover of the peninsula to Ukraine.

The MEPs recalled that the EU considers Crimea’s transition to Russia to be illegal and they say the restoration of Ukraine’s control over the peninsula is one of the mandatory conditions for the resumption of relations with Russia and the lifting of sanctions.