MARRAKESH, October 5. /TASS/. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) should again become a venue for equal dialogue and should drop double standards, Vladimir Dzhabarov, head of the delegation of Russia’s Federal Assembly, said on Saturday.
The lawmaker also called against whipping up anti-Russian hysteria at a meeting of the Standing Committee of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly during its autumn session.
"The OSCE should somehow restore the lost functions of a venue for equal dialogue and collective decision-making on security issues. So the Parliamentary Assembly should make a significant contribution to rapprochement of the member states’ stances," said Dzhabarov, First Deputy Chair of the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee.
According to him, "for this purpose, confrontational rhetoric needs to be abandoned as well as the sanctions policy and double standards", dialogue based on mutual respect should restart and interests should be taken into consideration.
Russia believes that a common strategic guideline "should involve the implementation of the instruction of the 2010 OSCE summit in Astana to create a single and indivisible security community."
"We state that it is unacceptable to whip up anti-Russia hysteria at the Assembly," Dzhabarov continued calling on his counterparts to "step up inter-parliamentary cooperation" to find solutions to problems without politicizing them.
Apart from that, the Russian delegation’s head called for adding amendments to rules and procedures of the OSCE PA. In particular, he meant "a ban to submit draft resolutions against certain countries."
"We cannot allow the Assembly to get transformed into a venue for mutual accusations and settling accounts," the lawmaker stressed.
The Russian delegation proposed that the amendments should be drafted and debated at the winter session in Vienna in February 2020, so that the rules of procedure could be updated by the annual meeting in Vancouver. For his part, President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly George Tsereteli voiced his disagreement with Russia’s position on voting in Luxembourg and expressed readiness to clarify the rules of procedure if necessary. He also suggested that these proposals could be considered at a meeting of the OSCE PA Office in Bratislava in December.