Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko has assigned the Foreign Affairs Committee to draw up a draft resolution on suspending the Russian delegation’s participation in the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, which should be ready by the upper house’s next plenary meeting on July 3, TASS reports.
"The latest episode when Romania denied visas to the Russian delegation is where we draw the line. I support the proposal of the Committee on Foreign Affairs together with the State Duma <…> to prepare everything necessary to adopt a joint decision on suspending our national delegation’s participation in the OSCE PA. Here, it is only the Parliamentary Assembly that loses," the speaker of the upper house of Russia’s parliament said.
Matviyenko emphasized that simultaneously with the decision to suspend participation in the PA, it would be decided to suspend payments "to the OSCE PA by the Russian Federation."
"Our patience is abundant. We have long been trying to explain the existing regulations, the existing norms to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, as well as the fact that nobody is authorized to restrain the participation of a national delegation in the Assembly. We have been trying to reason with them. However, as we can see, this organization has completely become biased and Ukrainianized," she said.
Matviyenko pointed out that Russia would continue to work in the bilateral framework at other international venues.
The Federation Council speaker was hopeful that the anti-Russian policy of the OSCE PA "is a temporary lapse in judgment which will sooner or later pass, and it will dawn on them that only with Russia’s participation can equal indivisible security for each country in general and for European security as a whole be addressed."
Earlier, Romanian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Radu Filip said that the Romanian authorities would not allow the Russian and Belarusian delegations to take part in the annual session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. The 31st session will be held in Bucharest June 29 through July 3.
