Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski has proposed placing Crimea under a United Nations mandate to hold a “fair referendum” there.
Sikorski said this during a discussion at the twentieth annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) in Kyiv, Interfax-Ukraine reports.
Crimea is symbolically important for Russia, and especially for (Russian President) Putin, but it is strategically important for Ukraine. Therefore, I do not see how they can reach an agreement without demilitarizing Crimea, – Sikorski said.
He believes that if both countries want to, a solution could be found here.
We could put it [Crimea] under the UN with a mission to prepare a fair referendum after verifying who the legal residents are, and so on… And we could postpone it for 20 years, – said the Polish Foreign Minister.
The Polish minister also expressed the opinion that it was a big mistake of the West, in particular the Americans, to tell Ukrainians not to fight in Crimea. He noted that “if Ukrainians had fought in Crimea, even symbolically, Putin might not have decided to go to Donbas”.
