VIENNA, September 8. /TASS/. North Macedonia has demonstrated its incompetence as the chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) by denying Russian public activists the chance to take part in the Conference on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Tetovo on September 5 and 6, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE Alexander Volgarev said on Friday.
"Those Russian public organizations that work in advocating for women’s rights planned to take part in this event. But they were denied the right to register because of a rule introduced at the last minute that all NGOs should have an invitation from the chairperson-in-office," he said at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council.
According to the Russian diplomat, this incident demonstrates North Macedonia’s inability to act as chair.
"This event will take its place among official Skopje’s numerous efforts toward violating relevant resolutions, rules of procedure and established practices," Volgarev stressed.
He noted that this requirement had not been announced beforehand. "Typically, anyone can apply to register for this or that event, filling an application in conformity with the rules. And applications are supposed to be considered by the organizers on a non-discriminatory basis. And, naturally, Russian, as well as all other, activists acted with this in mind," he said, adding that Russia’s request for an invitation was ignored, since, according to Russian diplomats, this invite protocol was introduced only for applications from Russia.
"Following the lead of its Polish predecessors and with active support from the countries of the Western alliance, North Macedonia continues its policy of breaking down the basics of the OSCE activities," he stressed. Russia, in his words, calls on the chairperson-in-office to "stop behaving this way.".