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PACE not decides what regions it visits – Polish parliamentarian

The parliamentarian said the delegation had not decided yet if it visited the North Caucasian republics

MOSCOW, February 11 (Itar-Tass) — The PACE delegation has not decided yet in what regions it will work, rapporteur Tadeusz Iwinski of Poland said on Saturday.

“Our mission will involve 30 parliamentarians, but we will be unable to visit all regions,” Iwinski said. “At the State Duma elections we monitored the situation in Vladivostok, Irkutsk and Yekaterinburg,” he added.

At the same time, the parliamentarian said the delegation had not decided yet if it visited the North Caucasian republics. “For many years the Council of Europe monitors the situation in the North Caucasus. The delegations visited Chechnya several times. But now we have not decided yet what regions we will travel to. Of course, we’d like to visit all regions,” Iwinski stressed.

For his part, head of the PACE observer delegation Tiny Kox said he lauded a growing number of Russian observers. “In November we disputed with the head of the Russian Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov, what observers had right to do at polling stations. Now it has become clear – the existing rules do not hamper our work,” Kox said.

Kox said he did not dramatise the fact that the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly would not arrive in Moscow to monitor the presidential elections scheduled for March 4. “We do not and will not interfere in this,” Kox said, adding, “the PACE closely cooperate with the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly”.

At the same time, he noted that ODIHR observers had come to work jointly with the PACE delegation and help Russian colleagues.

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