WARSAW, September 19. /TASS/. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is seeking to use humanitarian issues as a tool for achieving its political goals and exerting pressure on other countries, Anatoly Viktorov, director of the Russian foreign ministry’s humanitarian cooperation and human rights department, told TASS on Monday.
"Issues of human rights are a very politicized topic which is used by some of our Western partners to exert pressure to force these or those countries change their foreign policies, if not the domestic situation. It is an unacceptable approach and we have been consistently standing against it," Viktorov, who spoke at the opening of the annual OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, underscored.
"When certain states are seeking to assume the right to bossing and say they are the only ones to know how human rights are to be exercised in other countries and regions with no account of cultural, political and historical specifics of these regions, it is wrong. It in no way promotes, more to it, it impedes progress in realization of human rights," he said. "Double standards are going off the scale."
"Instead of constructive cooperation in advocating human rights, certain member states of the OSCE in the recent years have been seeking to use human rights issues to impose their own approaches and solutions to tasks that have little to do with human rights advocacy. The humanitarian basket is being used as an instrument to achieve other foreign policy goals," Viktorov said.
Other problems, in his words, include "imbalance between the three baskets in the OSCE activities, i.e. security issues, economic cooperation and human rights." "The third basket is seen in the organization as the most important one. It is an ungrounded tilt and we are against it," he said.
Touching on the problem of the balance between anti-terrorism measures and human rights, the Russian diplomat noted, "No actions aiming at ensuring security, including those aiming at countering terrorist threats, cannot violate human rights."
"At the same time, all sober-minded members of our European community understand that terrorist is a unique threat that sometimes requires radical measures," he said. "It is a delicate balance but all understand that tough measures are needed to counter terrorism but these measures must not violate human rights.".