A Republican congressman says it’s time to resolve the deadly conflict in eastern Ukraine, which on Thursday claimed the lives of nearly 300 people aboard a Malaysia Airlines flight, with an internationally monitored secession vote.

“It should be a no-brainer and yet it’s a no-no,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California tells U.S. News. “This is a position that’s way out of the mainstream, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

Ukraine’s government and rebels seeking to join Russia are accusing each other of responsibility for the plane disaster. The Kiev government released audio it says shows rebels reporting their culpability to Russia after mistaking the plane for a military aircraft.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Barack Obama both called for a cease-fire and peace negotiations Friday.

On Thursday Putin referred to the incident as a crime and said Ukraine beared responsibility for resuming its military offensive against rebels.

Rohrabacher says Putin should use whatever influence he has with the rebels entrenched in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces to hold culprits accountable, but that rebel responsibility wouldn’t change his view on a referendum.

Pro-Russia rebels are heavily armed with weapons seized from Ukraine’s military and local police, and allegedly receive covert aid from Russia. The separatists held contested independence referendums in May after activists seized government buildings.

“I think that letting people have an election and determine their own destiny through ballots rather than through bullets is the best way,” Rohrabacher says.



A majority of residents in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces speak Russian and voted for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, whose ouster in February infuriated many Russian-speaking Ukrainians.

Rohrabacher is a consistent supporter of the rights of minorities to self-determination. In March he endorsed the right of Crimean residents to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. The majority of American politicians, the Obama administration and Ukraine’s government consider the Russian annexation of Crimea a violation of international law because it was performed without the consent of the Kiev government.

“You always are going to have these people claiming that a nation has rights, that a government has rights, that the land is sacred land. But our Founding Fathers from the very beginning understood that rights are given by God to the individual to be able to control his or her own destiny, and as part of a particular race or ethnic group to act together in order to create a government that reflects their interests and their values,” he says.

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Rohrabacher says his position can apply to any number of disputes around the world, including those in Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan, and Baluchistan, a region controlled by Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He vocally supported Kosovo independence from Serbia, which Russia alleged at the time was a violation of international law, and he says he will advocate for U.S. recognition of Kurdish independence from Iraq if a secession vote takes place.