VIENNA, February 7. /TASS/. Russia has blocked approval of the agenda of a meeting on international humanitarian law within the framework of the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation (FSC), Konstantin Gavrilov, head of Russia’s delegation to the Vienna talks on military security and arms control, said at the organization’s plenary session.
"Mister chairman, the delegation of the Russian Federation <...> is informing you of the lack of consensus with regard to approving the agenda of the 1069th plenary session of the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation. Over the past two years, the FSC if not completely degraded, then has become deformed in the most serious way due to the reckless behavior of a number of Western member states, above all, NATO members, which have turned this venue exclusively into an arena for conducting political battles with Russia," the diplomat noted.
According to the head of the Russian delegation, NATO countries are putting unprecedented pressure on Cyprus, which is currently chairing the OSCE FSC, in order to monopolize the right to determine the agenda of plenary sessions. Gavrilov also stressed that Russia had requested including Russian representatives in the list of speakers in advance in order to be reviewed by the Croatian presidency of the FSC, which is slated to start in April. This was prompted by Cyprus turning down a similar request from the Russian delegation under the pretext that "the list of speakers was coordinated earlier."
"If the chairmanship has the right to propose the agenda and shape the pool of speakers at the session, then our right is to agree or disagree with the integral agenda proposed for approval," the Russian diplomat concluded.