Crimea’s 2014 Secession Referendum Was Legal – French Lawmaker

Sputnik – 25.07.2015

Residents of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea have a legal right to hold a secession referendum, including the 2014 vote that separated them from Ukraine and reunited them with Russia, French lawmaker Claude Goasguen, currently in Russia with the French delegation, said Saturday.

“They say that Crimean people had no legal right to hold a referendum. Of course they had! Why not? This is what saved the region from war,” Goasguen said at a press conference in Moscow.

A group of 10 French lawmakers, led by lower-house National Assembly Foreign Affairs Committee member Thierry Mariani, arrived in Russia for a three-day visit on Thursday. The delegation visited Crimea to see the Black Sea peninsula following its secession from Ukraine in March 2014.

Both the French and Ukrainian governments have condemned the trip, considering it a breach of international law.

The Crimean peninsula split from Ukraine to rejoin Russia in March 2014 after a referendum in which over 96 percent voted in favor of the secession.

Kiev and its Western allies labeled the vote an “annexation,” while Moscow pointed out that the actions of the local populace were within the international legal framework.