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Russia turning to Egypt for support on drafting resolution to combat sanctions — senator

Senator Konstantin Kosachev said that Russian parliamentarians had the same requests for other partners to increase the number of contributors to the draft resolution

MOSCOW, September 19. /TASS/. Moscow expects to get support from Egyptian legislators in drafting and adopting a resolution in the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) on the inadmissibility of unilateral economic and political sanctions imposed by certain countries, Chairman of the Russian Federation Council’s (upper house) Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev said on Thursday.

"At the upcoming IPU Assembly in Belgrade, we are planning to propose that the Inter-Parliamentary Union draw up and pass in a year’s time as the procedures prescribe, a special resolution on the inadmissibility of applying unilateral economic and political sanctions in international relations," Kosachev said as he met with a delegation of Egyptian colleagues.

He said that in line with the IPU procedures, a text had been hammered out that explained the idea of drafting the resolution. "This is not the text of the resolution, but a motivational note so to say. I don’t expect any final answer from you at the moment, I would like to hand this draft over to you to look into it calmly," the senior legislator said.

"If you support this idea, we would be grateful if you advised your delegation to the Assembly in Belgrade that we might act as co-authors," the senator added. He said the Russian parliamentarians had the same requests to other partners to increase the number of contributors to the draft resolution.

The mechanism of sanctions is quite well known in international law, and the sanctions approved by the United Nations or the Security Council "are certainly legitimate and must be abided by and respected by all UN member countries," he stressed.

However, nowadays some individual states, or groups of nations (mainly Western countries) are frequently, and with increasingly intensity, applying unilateral sanctions that are "certainly at odds with international law and the UN Charter," he went on to say.

"We intend to present our initiative to the IPU Committee on Democracy and Human Rights. We are focusing precisely on the humanitarian consequences of unilateral sanctions, and on how they affect the population," the senior legislator specified.

He said the situations in which the supply of food or medicine are sanctioned are categorically unacceptable. As an example, he cited the recent blockade of Yemen by Saudi Arabia, in which tens of thousands have died of hunger. "This incident is among the most evident examples of an unlawful policy of unilateral sanctions," Kosachev pointed out.

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