Turkey to Send Mission to Crimea over Tatar 'Oppression'

Turkey said Friday it will send and "informal mission" to Crimea to monitor what it termed the "oppression" of Crimean Tatars, an ethnic group that opposed Russia's 2014 seizure of the Black Sea peninsula.

"We are sending an informal mission to observe the human rights violations in Crimea soon," Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters in Lithuania.

"The situation in Crimea is unacceptable. The Crimean people and particularly Crimean Tatars have been oppressed, attacked and their rights have been violated," he added.

Turks have close kinship bonds with the Muslim, Turkic-speaking Tatar minority in Crimea, the region Moscow annexed from Ukraine a year ago.

Russian authorities on Wednesday shut down a television channel serving Crimean Tatars, sparking concern in Ukraine and the West.

Turkey did not join the Western sanctions over the annexation but Cavusoglu insisted Ankara would "never recognize illegal annexation" of Crimea.