Ukraine vows never to accept Kremlin control of Black Sea peninsula: ‘Most Crimean Tatars would regard it as betrayal’

Then the next morning we saw pictures of gunmen seizing the parliament and other official buildings,

says Dzhelyal

The positions of Turkey, Europe and the United States are all important, and they all take the Crimean Tatars into account. But Turkey does this the most,

says Dzhelyal

Many people in Crimea were inspired by the victory of Maidan and by Yanukovich fleeing, and the Crimean authorities were very scared,

says Dzhelyal of February 2014, when he was a member of the Mejlis, a representative body for the Crimean Tatars

It’s something in the genes, something very deep,

says Dzhelyal of why he and his wife decided to stay, even after Russia banned the Mejlis for “extremism” in 2016.

We understood from the start that they wanted to destroy me not just as a political leader, but to portray me as a terrorist to destroy all trust in me and in everything I had been doing,

he recalls

Nariman Dzhelyaljournalist, poet and politician

Recognition of occupied Crimea as Russian territory would be a blow primarily to Ukraine’s own interests,

says Nariman Dzhelyal, a prominent Crimean Tatar journalist, activist and politician who returned to Ukraine last June after Russia sentenced him to 17 years in jail and kept him behind bars for nearly three years

I can predict that most Crimean Tatars, despite understanding the pressure on Ukraine, despite the desire to end the war and the desire for a peaceful life, would regard such actions by the Ukrainian authorities as betrayal,

he says