Petr Tolstoy: Russia to reconsider issue of payments to OSCE PA, if our delegation is not allowed to participate in its work

Head of the Russian delegation, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma said that at the meeting of the OSCE PA General Committee
Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Petr Tolstoy
Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Petr Tolstoy

The Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE PA) would reconsider issue of making annual payments to the organization if the delegation “is not allowed to participate in the work of the assembly in 2023”, as said Petr Tolstoy Tolstoy Petr Olegovich Tolstoy
Petr Olegovich
.

“The Russian Federation believes that the annual payment made by our country in 2022 was not used in full due to the fact that the British and Poles did not let us participate in the work of the assembly. If Russia is not allowed to participate in 2023 under any pretext, we will reconsider the issue of making annual payments,” stressed Petr Tolstoy.

He recalled that Russia was a co-founder of the OSCE, but the members of the organization “have gone too far in their discourse of hating Russia.” “Attempts to prevent our delegation from participating in the work of the assembly, attempts not to let us come to those countries where the assembly is taking place, mean that this is a closed door for dialogue. If you do not need dialogue, there will not be any<…> Why should Russia pay for being a co-founder of the OSCE and not participating in the work of the assembly?” wondered Petr Tolstoy.

“We are still trying to break the wall of lies and Russophobia,” said Leonid Slutsky Slutsky Leonid Eduardovich Slutsky
Leonid Eduardovich
, the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs. “We are fighting against neo-Nazism, which is supported and sponsored by those who are behind the Ukrainian junta and those who for years encouraged the genocide of the Russian-speaking people in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics,” he added.

The winter meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) was held on February 23–24 in Vienna, the Russian delegation also participated in its events.