Czech Republic to consider recognizing deportation of Crimean Tatars as genocide - president

Czech President Petr Pavel has said he intends to discuss with MPs the issue of recognizing the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people in 1944 as an act of genocide.

He said this at a briefing in Prague after his visit to Ukraine, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

According to Pavel, the Crimean Tatars have been oppressed by Russia for a very long time, since Stalin's rule in the USSR. Representatives of this nation appealed to the president of the Czech Republic during his visit to Ukraine so that the Czech Republic could join a number of countries that condemned the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944 as an act of genocide.

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"In the past, something happened that can be called genocide with a clear conscience, although in the Soviet Union it was called resettlement. [...] This resettlement had all the signs of genocide," Pavel said, adding that he would discuss this issue with MPs.

He also recalled that the Crimean Tatars supported Czechoslovakia in 1968, after its occupation by the Soviet Union, and the Czechs should not forget that.

The Czech president visited Ukraine on April 28-29 together with Slovak President Zuzana Caputova.

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