The delegation of the Verkhovna Rada will not participate in the winter session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, which will be held February 23-24 in Vienna, in protest against the admission of Russian representatives to it.
Evgenia Kravchuk, a member of the delegation, a people’s deputy from the Servant of the People, said this on the air of the telethon on Sunday, Evropeyskaya Pravda reports.
“We will not participate in the official events of the Parliamentary Assembly, in any. But we are going to Vienna to negotiate with our partners on what to do, how to get the OSCE and at least the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly out of this crisis,” she said.
According to the deputy, the situation, “when one or two countries can block all decisions, is actually a dead end for any international organization where such a rule operates.” “Therefore, we are working together with our partners to reform the OSCE PA,” Kravchuk added.
She noted that the Russian delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly includes more than 60 people – not only deputies, and “there is a whole bunch, we understand, just special services, propagandists who will come to use the meeting as a decoration.”
“Together with our Ukrainian community, we are working on protests near the territory of the Hofburg, where this will take place, so that this does not become the norm. But we ourselves will not be at the meetings,” she stressed.
Earlier, Ukraine opposed the presence of the Russian delegation at the official meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and proposed to rescheduleis.
As reported, Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg defends the country’s decision allow Russian delegates, who are under Western sanctions, to the OSCE meeting in Vienna – despite criticism from two dozen countries.
Recall that representatives of Russia did not take part in the summer and autumn sessions of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly – Great Britain and Poland, respectively, refused to issue visas to them.
