The Committee on Human Rights, Deoccupation and Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories in Donetsk, Luhansk Regions and Autonomous Republic of Crimea, National Minorities and Interethnic Relations met with OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Kairat Abdrakhmanov.
During the meeting, the Chairperson of the Human Rights Committee Dmytro Lubinets acquainted the High Commissioner with the activities of the Committee related to the issues of national minorities. These included, in particular, monitoring visits to Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Odesa, Chernivtsi and Zakarpattia regions - to places of compact residence of national minorities. Such visits were carried out in order to study living conditions and ensure their rights and freedoms and significantly helped to develop a draft of a new version of the Law of Ukraine “On National Minorities in Ukraine.”
The Chairperson of the Committee stressed that the tradition of monitoring visits will be continued. “The route of new visits is already being prepared, which will start in Kharkiv region and end in Lviv region. This will help take into account the interests of all nationalities living in Ukraine. And we have more than 130 of them!” noted Dmytro Lubinets.
The High Commissioner noted that Ukraine today is an example for many states in addressing issues of national minorities. He also stressed that he wants to help carry out monitoring visits, especially to Transcarpathia. He expressed his conviction that the new bill on national minorities has every chance to make the lives of people of different nationalities in Ukraine more comfortable.