UN General Assembly committee adopts resolution on human rights in Crimea

The UN General Assembly committee has voted to adopt a resolution on human rights in Crimea, the press service of Ukraine's Permanent Mission to the UN reported, Interfax informs.

"On November 15, 2016, the Third Committee (focused on the subject of human rights) of the UN General Assembly adopted resolution entitled 'Situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (Ukraine)', initiated by Ukraine," the mission said in a statement posted on its website.

A total of 73 states voted for the document, 23 voted against, and 76 abstained. Some 41 states were co-authors of the resolution, the mission said.

"For the first time the official documents of the UN recognize the Russian Federation as an occupying power and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol as a temporarily occupied territory. In addition, the resolution confirmed the territorial integrity of Ukraine and reaffirmed the non-recognition of annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula," the statement reads.

The document also urges Russia to allow international human rights mechanisms, in particular the Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, unimpeded access to Crimea in order to monitor human rights situation and asks the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a separate thematic report on the situation in the peninsula.

The approved resolution is an important diplomatic, political and legal mechanism through which Ukraine protects the rights of its citizens on the territory of temporarily occupied Crimea, the mission said.

The resolution is expected to be adopted at a plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly in December 2016.