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Lavrov lambasts OSCE for rejecting Moscow’s initiatives

Russia prepared at least four initiatives, the minister said

MILAN, December 7. /TASS/. The OSCE Ministerial Council did not approve any of the Russia-initiated documents on tackling pressing international issues only because they were proposed by Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters at a news conference on Friday.

"Russia had prepared four draft decisions for that meeting on what I consider to be very important issues. Firstly, it's fighting terrorism, secondly, enhancing the OSCE’s role in solving the global drug problem and, thirdly, it is protecting the language and education rights of ethnic minorities. The fourth one… is ensuring free access to information for media outlets. Unfortunately, none of these decisions were approved, even though their topicality cannot be questioned by anyone. Our initiatives were not supported only because they were proposed by the Russian Federation," he stressed.

Situation in OSCE 

Russia is concerned about the unsound situation that has emerged on the OSCE space, Lavrov told reporters. 

"We, the Russian delegation, expressed our concern, giving specific examples, about the unsound situation, to put it bluntly, which emerged on the OSCE space, including the growing military and political tensions on that space," he said.

Lavrov stressed that Western partners’ ideological bias, their desire to introduce Cold War policy elements did not make it possible to focus on joint efforts to eliminate real rather than invented threats and risks. "We see our counterparts in the North Atlantic Alliance pursuing the policy aimed at containing Russia, stepping up military activities close to our borders, creating military infrastructure on ‘the eastern front,’ as they call it, trying to put forward unsubstantiated accusations, which are not conducive to dialogue," he pointed out.

Russia’s top diplomat also drew attention to the fact that Western countries used the "rules-based order" term instead of international law. "I don’t understand the difference between that order and international law. However, judging by the circumstances under which that term is used, our Western counterparts believe that international law is something that requires universal agreement, while the rules-based order is invented by themselves," he said.