International News

UNITED NATIONS, United States, (MILLAT+APP/AFP): UN member states on
Tuesday condemned rights abuses in Crimea and pressed Russia to allow UN monitors to visit the Ukrainian territory it invaded more than two years ago.
The resolution drafted by Ukraine and backed by the United States,
France and Britain was adopted by a vote of 73 to 23 with 76 abstentions by the General Assembly’s human rights committee.
The resolution will go for a vote at the full assembly next month.
Russia opposed the resolution, dismissing it as
politically-motivated.
Russian foreign ministry official Anatoly Viktorov complained that UN
diplomats “waste time on discussing useless propaganda leaflets instead of
conducting a substantive dialogue on political issues related to promoting
human rights.”
Among the countries that backed Russia in opposing the resolution
were China, Iran, India, Syria, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Serbia and North Korea.
Many Latin American and African countries abstained from the vote,
which for the first time put Crimea under scrutiny at the assembly’s rights committee.