Crimean Tatar leader urges continued sanctions against Russia

Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev on Thursday urged the West to maintain strong sanctions against Russia over last year's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula to pressure the Russian "aggressors" to leave without using military force.

Mr. Dzhemilev, who was barred from Crimea after the Russian takeover, warned that "if the war starts in Crimea it will mean the extermination of the entire Crimean Tatar population" in the region.

He told a news conference before an informal briefing to the United Nations Security Council that he remains in contact with dozens of people in the 280,000-member Muslim Tatar community still living there who say life is now as bad or worse than it was under the Soviet Union.

He called last year's referendum that led to Russia's annexation "fake" and said that according to recent sociological surveys, only 20 percent of Crimea's population would vote in favor of joining Russia if a referendum was held now.

The Tatar leader painted a grim picture of people in Crimea seeking to remain part of Ukraine being repressed, of more than 4,000 businesses closing down and being taken over by "so-called self-defense groups," and of "very tense" inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations.

"Violations of human rights are flagrant and they have overpowered those taking place during the Soviet era," he told reporters after the briefing.

Dzhemilev lamented that Crimea used to be a popular tourist area but is now "being turned into a military base." He said state-of-the art Russian Iskander rockets are reportedly being transferred to a site near Yalta that was a nuclear base before Ukraine renounced nuclear weapons in 1994.

Deported en masse to Central Asia by the Soviets 70 years ago, the Tatars began returning to Crimea in the 1980s to rebuild their lives in an independent Ukraine.

Dzhemilev said the Tatars' self-ruling body, the Mejlis, which was disbanded by Russian authorities but still operates outside Crimea, has urged the Tatars to stay in Crimea and maintain their homeland.

Thursday's Security Council meeting was informal and members were not required to attend.

Lithuania's UN Ambassador Raimonda Murmokaite, who organized the closed-door session to update the council on events since the Russian annexation, expressed regret that Russia, China, Venezuela, and Angola boycotted the meeting.

"Russia is normally very quick to criticize Ukraine alleging human rights violations but completely ignores human rights violations happening under its own rule or under its proxy's rule," she said.