Olexandr Sych met with OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Astrid Thors

The meeting concerned the problems of preserving the rights of various ethnic communities in Ukraine, in particular, those of the Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea. The Vice-Prime Minister and Astrid Thors expressed concern about the grave human rights violations - searches, intimidations, bans to use their native language in schools, etc. The object of the discussion became also blatant violation by the Russian aggressor of the rights of ethnic Ukrainians in the regions of Donbas controlled by the rebels and Russian troops.

Moreover, the top official familiarized the OSCE High Commissioner with activity of recently founded institutions that are called to form conceptual grounds of ethnic national policy of the country, in particular, Government Commissioner for Ethnonational Policy and the Interethnic Harmony Council within the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Besides, the Vice Prime Minister noted that in Ukraine there cannot be dominating one national minority over another, and each ethnic community should have equal rights to use freely their cultural, linguistic and other rights. "We must overcome the monopoly of one national minority [Russian – ed.] over all other ethnic communities of Ukraine, so that each of them had an opportunity to cherish their language, traditions, culture on equal grounds. Only on conditions of providing equal rights for each ethnic community, we can talk about the well balanced policy of interethnic unity, instead of limiting it to the conflict between the Ukrainian nation, building its statehood, and the Russian-speaking minority," said Olexandr Sych.

Astrid Thors congratulated Ukraine on the ratification of the Association Agreement with the EU and expressed belief that our country would never choose another way than the way of European development and promotion of democratic values.