MOSCOW: The Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs has recommended that the chamber adopt on July 3 the Federal Assembly's sta...
MOSCOW: The Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs has recommended that the chamber adopt on July 3 the Federal Assembly's statement on suspending the Russian delegation's participation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE PA) as well as any cash contributions to its budget, a source participating in the committee meeting told TASS.
He added that the senators supported the document unanimously.
"They supported it and recommended that the Federation Council adopt it at a meeting on July 3," the agency source said.
According to the draft statement, Russian senators and State Duma MPs are adamant that restricting parliamentarians who represent the people from taking part in OSCE PA events is unacceptable.
"We have to state that under the current circumstances the possibilities for continuing constructive dialogue in the OSCE PA have been completely exhausted. In this regard, the Russian senators and State Duma members consider it reasonable and legitimate to suspend the participation of the delegation of the Russian Federal Assembly in the OSCE PA and the payment of contributions to the OSCE PA budget," the document states.
"The Russian senators and State Duma MPs declare their readiness to return to work in the OSCE PA on condition that its leadership and a number of member states revise Russophobic and discriminatory approaches to solving pressing problems of European security, and also express hope that sensible forces in the assembly will show the necessary will to resolve the political and ideological crisis in the area of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in the interests of peace and stability on the continent," it added.
The parliamentarians also believe that the repeated appeals to the leadership of the OSCE PA and its members to return to an equal interparliamentary dialogue have not been taken seriously, the draft statement says. "Despite the Russian delegation's repeated appeals and proposals, the priorities of the OSCE PA leadership indicate that at present, instead of creating conditions for a constructive exchange of views and the formation of a unifying agenda, this platform is being used as a politicized tool for the purposeful implementation of an anti-Russian course, including the deliberate distortion of the reasons of the events taking place in Ukraine. Biased, discriminatory approaches, double standards and total Russophobia, as well as an unwillingness to engage in substantive discussion, including on topical issues of ensuring equal and indivisible security, testify to the extreme degradation of the OSCE PA as a mechanism for interparliamentary co-operation," the senators and MPs state.
Visa denials
In addition, they draw attention to the fact that for many years the Parliamentary Assembly has ignored the problems related to the violation of the rights of national minorities in Ukraine and the Baltic States, the freedom of communication and education in one's native language, has not paid attention to the blasphemous glorification of the Nazis and their accomplices, the harassment and murder of journalists who voice a position different from that of Brussels and Washington. The parliamentarians also emphasize that the Russian delegation to the OSCE PA has, under spurious pretexts, "repeatedly been deprived of the opportunity to continue dialogue and to participate fully and equally in the work of the plenary sessions and governing bodies of the OSCE PA."
In particular, members of the Russian delegation were denied visas to participate in the annual session of the OSCE PA in Birmingham in 2022, its fall meeting in Warsaw, and in Vancouver in 2023. "The non-admission of the Russian delegation to these events predetermined the adoption of the only possible decision to suspend payments to the OSCE PA budget. This suspension was used to deprive its members of the right to vote, which prevents representatives of our country from participating in the adoption of decisions," the draft statement reads.
Romania's demonstrative refusal to issue visas to members of the Russian delegation to participate in the annual session of the OSCE PA in Bucharest in 2024 was "the last point in the emerging deadlock," the senators and MPs emphasize. During the period of suspension of participation, any action to amend the Assembly's Rules of Procedure with the aim of prejudicing the Russian delegation will be considered legally null and void, the document concluded.
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