Council of Europe offers to monitor treatment of minorities in Ukraine

The Council of Europe, the pan-European human rights watchdog, is offering to investigate violence and the treatment of minorities in Ukraine to try to defuse mounting tensions between Kiev and Russia, Austria said.
Sebastian Kurz, the foreign minister of Austria, which holds the revolving chair of the 47-member Council until May, told Reuters on Friday that he and the Council's secretary general would visit Kiev on Monday to offer its services in the conflict.
Moscow has cited the need to protect the rights of the ethnic Russian minority in Ukraine as the official reason for its military intervention that has put pro-Russia forces in control of the Crimea region, where ethnic Russians are in the majority.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/07/us-ukraine-crisis-council-idUSBREA260LA20140307