The latest resolutions on Crimea, Abkhazia and South Ossetia passed by the OSCE demonstrate that the organization only defends the interests of NATO member states, the head of the Russian Upper House Committee for International Affairs has said.
“The resolution on Crimea passed at the Tbilisi session of the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] Parliamentary Assembly as well as its resolutions on Abkhazia and South Ossetia would be worthy of attention only under the following condition: if they were among many resolutions that prove that this assembly cares about human rights all over the world regardless of geopolitical preferences of majority of its member nations,” senator Konstantin Kosachev wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday. “The Tbilisi resolutions only demonstrate selectiveness of this body and crocodile tears shed on order,” he added.
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Kosachev emphasized that Russia’s attitude to the OSCE would change radically only if the organization passed resolutions mentioning the rights of Russian-speaking minorities in Baltic countries and in Ukraine, the rights of the Serbian minority in Kosovo, or the legal status of Northern Cyprus.
“Nothing like this happens, because the Baltics, Turkey and Kosovo, with its Camp Bondsteel US Army base, all fall under NATO responsibility and NATO members hold a majority in the OSCE,” he wrote.
“For this reason we are not going to read these new resolutions. All the engine’s steam was spent in the whistle,” the senator concluded, using a Russian folk expression illustrating a situation when a much-hyped venture turns out to barely exist in reality.
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The 25th Annual Session of the OSCE’s Parliamentary Assembly closed on Tuesday in the Georgian capital. The participants at the event adopted the 2016 Tbilisi Declaration focusing on security, migration and human rights issues.
The assembly also adopted a resolution on the conflict in Georgia that stipulates that the Georgian authorities do not recognize any agreements between Russia and the republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It also covers the resolution on the situation in Crimea, drafted by the Ukrainian delegation, that focuses on the alleged violations of human rights and freedoms in the republic that reportedly took place after Crimea joined the Russian Federation two years ago.
The Russian delegation to the OSCE PA has refused to discuss or amend the document on Crimea, saying that it was obviously biased and anti-Russian.