Turkey Believes Crimea Should Be Returned to Ukraine if Agreement Signed with Russia

• 08.24.2022, 09:26
•  Europe,  Region,  World

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Crimea should become a Ukrainian territory again if Russia and Ukraine sign a corresponding agreement, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, TASS reports.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea is not legal, and Turkey’s stance on this has not changed since 2014, Turkish television channel TRT quoted Kalin as saying. "This should be the basis of any agreement to be made," he added.

Crimea and Sevastopol adopted declarations of independence on March 11, 2014. They held a referendum on March 16, 2014, in which 96.77% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the reunification treaties on March 18, 2014. Ukraine, the United States and the European Union still refuse to recognize Crimea’s independence and the peninsula’s accession to Russia.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that "the return of Crimea to Ukraine, of which it is an inseparable part, is essentially a requirement of international law."