Russia to remind OSCE Ministerial Council session of proposal on common election monitoring rules - Lavrov
Russia intends to raise the issue of introducing common rules for election monitoring at the upcoming Dublin session of the OSCE Ministerial Council, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said.
"As for the issue of election monitoring in OSCE countries, this requires some sort of harmonization because no generally accepted rules acceptable for the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights have been worked out so far," he said at a Friday press conference in Kyiv after talks with his Ukrainian colleague Kostiantyn Hryschenko.
Lavrov reminded journalists that in 2007 Russia had already submitted a corresponding proposal and has regularly reminded partners at the OSCE about the initiative. "At the next session of the OSCE Ministerial Council scheduled for Dublin at the beginning of December of this year, we will remind them of this document, refresh their memory and circulate it once again," he said.
Lavrov said that some OSCE countries were "not very positive" about the Russian initiative.
"I don't know why. No coherent explanations are given," he said.
He said he discussed the subject of OSCE election monitoring with Hryschenko because next year Ukraine will hold rotating chairmanship of the OSCE.
Lavrov spoke for organizing dialogue on election observation within the OSCE. "It is one thing when the sides cannot find mutually acceptable decisions in the course of dialogue and another when dialogue is renounced altogether," he said.
"OSCE is moving slowly on this issue," he said.
He spoke for holding joint seminars on election legislation within the OSCE framework. "How much is the obligation to invite foreign observers reflected in national laws? Very many countries, especially to the west of Vienna, have not fulfilled this obligation and it is not reflected in their laws," he said.
In Lavrov's opinion, the reasons for such an attitude to OSCE obligations should be clarified and approaches compared.
"We will support the ideas that the Ukrainian presidency will have on the matter," he said.
