“Any suggestions to give up Ukraine’s territories in favor of the aggressor are unacceptable,” Nariman Dzhelyal, the First Deputy Head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, stated.

Nariman Dzhelyal, addressing the audience in the Crimean Tatar language, said that the representative body of the Crimean Tatar people demands the release of all Ukrainian military and civilian prisoners from Russian prisons, as stated in the Ukrainian Peace Formula proposed by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. This was particularly significant in the context of the fact that the Deputy Head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people himself had previously been captured by the Russian occupiers in Crimea in 2021 after participating in the first Inaugural Summit of the Crimea Platform. Nariman Dzhelyal was returned from Russian captivity as part of the mutual release of civilian prisoners by 28 June 2024.

“Ukraine has been resisting Russian aggression for eleven years. Russia’s goal has not changed over the centuries—it is trying to destroy the independent Ukrainian state and enslave the Ukrainian nation,” Nariman Dzhelyal said.

He stressed that any territorial concessions would not only fail to lead to the desired peace but would be an injustice to the Indigenous People of Ukraine, primarily due to the occupiers’ systematic violations of human rights, political persecution, and arrests of all those who disagree with the Russian occupation. The Deputy Head of the Mejlis added that since the first days of the Russian occupation, the most consolidated in supporting the territorial integrity of Ukraine were the Indigenous People of Ukraine. For this reason, they have suffered the most severe repression by the Russian occupiers.

He is convinced: “Ukraine seeks reconciliation and peace more than anyone else, but this reconciliation cannot be achieved by compromising its conscience, territory, and independence.”

Finally, on behalf of the Mejlis, Nariman Dzhelyal expressed gratitude to the President of Ukraine for supporting initiatives to restore the rights of the Indigenous People of Ukraine.

“The liberation and reintegration of Crimea should be linked to the process of restoring the rights of the Crimean Tatar people, including their political rights,” he concluded.

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