Ukraine announces boycott to OSCE meeting in Vienna as russia participates
The Verkhovna Rada delegation will not participate in the winter session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, which will be held on February 23-24 in Vienna, as a sign of protest against the admission of representatives from the russian federation.
Yevheniya Kravchuk, a delegation member, said this at the Ukrainian TV broadcast.
"We will not participate in any official events of the Parliamentary Assembly. But we are going to Vienna for talks 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 Kravchuk, the situation "when one or two countries can block all decisions is actually a dead end for any international organization where such a rule applies."
"That is why we are working together with our partners on the reform of the OSCE PA," the delegation member added.
The deputy noted that the russian delegation at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly includes more than 60 people. It is not only deputies. "… there are a whole bunch, we understand, just special services, propagandists who will attend the meeting as a decoration," she added.
"Together with our Ukrainian community, we are working on protests near Hofburg, where the meeting will take place, so that this doesn't become the norm. But we ourselves will not be at the meetings," – Kravchuk stressed.
Earlier before, Ukraine opposed the presence of the russian delegation at the official meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and offered to postpone the meeting.
As it was reported, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Austria, Alexander Schallenberg, defends the country's decision to allow russian delegates, who are under Western sanctions, to the OSCE meeting in Vienna. Even despite the criticism of two dozen countries.
russian representatives didn't participate in the summer and autumn sessions of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. Britain and Poland refused to issue them visas.
To remind
russia plans to send delegates to the February meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, including 15 russian deputies who are under EU sanctions. Among them is pyotr tolstoy, the deputy chairman of the state duma, and his fellow MP leonid slutskyi.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine previously stated that the only way to save the OSCE is to get rid of russia as member of it.
