STRASBOURG, January 31. /TASS/. Russia’s Declaration of Condemnation of Attempts at Second World War Revisionism already signed by 76 representatives of 17 nations in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), will become an even more far-reaching European document after it is presented at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization on Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), says Russian delegation head Pyotr Tolstoy.
"The representatives of 17 PACE nations have signed the Russian declaration. […] We will most likely offer this declaration up for signing at the OSCE PA as well," Tolstoy said. "So, this will be a rather extensive European document, and it will be ready by the end of April," the Russian delegate pledged.
He disclosed that he had discussed the declaration at the PACE Bureau meeting Friday morning and that even the Polish representatives agreed to the document in general, although they noted Warsaw’s position regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent comments about World War II.
"I think we’ve reached a consensus here, and other delegations will get on board," Tolstoy maintained.
Earlier, Russia presented the Declaration of Condemnation of Attempts at Second World War Revisionism at PACE’s winter session. The document condemns the "destruction of burial places of soldiers who fell in the struggle to liberate Europe" from Nazism, as well as the catastrophic war’s historical lessons "being deliberately distorted for political ends."
The statement also urges member states of the Council of Europe to include "truthful information on the Second World War taking account of the views endorsed by the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1947", into their history books.
The declaration points out that, as the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War draws near, [PACE member states] "condemn any attempts to distort the historical truth" and "call for support for the global initiative to grant World heritage status to the Victory over Nazism in the Second World War and the monuments to those who fought against Nazism in all countries."
WWII revisionism unacceptable
Moscow has repeatedly emphasized that falsifying the history of World War II, and rewriting its outcome and the role of the Soviet people in the fight against Nazism, is unacceptable. In his State of the Nation Address on January 15, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the creation of a groundbreaking historical archive of war documents, available to the entire world.
In the last few weeks, Poland has virulently opposed Moscow’s struggle to preserve the war’s historical memory. Warsaw criticized Putin’s statement in which he recalled that the Soviet Union was the last European state to sign a non-aggression treaty with Germany. It also criticized the Ministry of Defense’s decision to publish archived World War II documents, many of which present the actions of Polish citizens at the time in a bad light.
During the 75th Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp liberation anniversary, Polish President Andrzej Duda offered his Ukrainian counterpart Vladimir Zelensky to pay respects to the "fighters against Bolshevism" during the 1920s.