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OSCE adopts resolution granting all MPs access to its events — Russian MP

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly's agenda included a Russia-initiated resolution on inadmissibility of sanctions against lawmakers

MOSCOW, July 4. /TASS/. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which is currently holding a session in the Georgian capital city Tbilisi, has passes a resolution on unrestricted access to the organization’s events for all lawmakers, Alexei Pushkov, the chairman of the international committee of the Russian State Duma lower parliament house, said on Monday.

"The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Tbilisi has passed a resolution granting all lawmakers unrestricted access to all OSCE events and international meetings," he wrote on his Twitter account. "It is a blow on the logic of sanctions."

"The very atmosphere of the discussion on the resolution demonstrated that big changes are happening in the European attitudes both to the sanction policy and in general to the use of any restrictions for parliamentarians, Igor Morozov, a member of Russia’s Federation Council upper parliament house and member of the Russian delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, said. "It is a real victory of common sense and the ideas of parliamentarism."

"As our partners from the French parliament said, it is absurd to impose any restrictions on lawmakers in times of political crises when dialogue and intensive contacts are needed to settle the existing problems," Morozov told TASS. In his words, this position was shered by lawmakers from Switzerland, Greece, Italy and some other states.

The annual session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly is being attended by delegations from all the 57 member states. The Russian delegation is led by State Duma member Nikolai Kovalyov, who is also the assembly’s special envoy for anti-terrorism efforts.

He said earlier that the assembly’s agenda included a Russia-initiated resolution on inadmissibility of sanctions against lawmakers. However, in his words, it would be submitted for discussion in a compromise wording offered by the leader of the Swiss delegation Filippo Lombardi, which envisaged unrestricted access for members of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly to participation in OSCE official events and other types of activity. "We have managed to have the resolution cover other types of activities as well," Kovalyov said.