The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe rejected a bid by 24 Eastern European and Scandinavian deputies to suspend the voting rights of the Russian delegation in order to punish Moscow for its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The move would have cast doubt on the very presence of a Moscow delegation in the European human rights organization in Strasbourg.
On Wednesday, the assembly voted 114 to 20 against the suspension, which had been criticized this week by other members of PACE who sought to take a more moderate view of Moscow.
Members of the Russian delegation, which had earlier called the bid "absurd," welcomed the decision.
"Our delegation has carried out the minimum - we have succeeded in overturning the tendency towards one-sided accusations of Russian aggression and Georgian innocence," Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee, was quoted by the Vremya Novostei newspaper as saying. "At the least, a black and white approach to these events has been rejected and deputies are recognizing the complexity of the situation. Of course, it's difficult to hope to achieve the maximum: the recognition that Russia acted justly in the conflict. But at least the incidents will be investigated."
Key members of the committee were in Strasbourg Thursday and unavailable to return calls from The Moscow News.
As Europe moved to deploy 200 observers to the buffer zones adjacent to South Ossetia and Abkhazia in compliance with the six-point plan agreed last month by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, the decision reflected a Europe that was generally taking a more moderate stance towards Russia.
The initial bid to suspend voting rights for the Russian delegation came amid contrasting positions in the Council. Earlier there were reports that the motion, which came from Finland, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, Sweden and the Baltic states, had divided parliamentarians, some of which had revoked their signatures from the bid. From the start, PACE officials suggested that sanctions against Russia were unlikely as there was no support for them.
Terry Davis, Secretary-general of the Council of Europe, was earlier quoted in Russian news agencies as admitting that both Russia and Georgia were responsible for the conflict in the South Caucasus region. He clarified, however, that Georgia could not be considered an aggressor because it was conducting a military operation on its own soil, in South Ossetia.
The body was in talks Thursday regarding a resolution on the conflict that would urge Russia to annul its recognition of Georgia's breakaway republics and withdraw all peacekeeping forces from Georgia, including South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Georgian delegates said that Russia would have until the next PACE session in January to comply with the conditions outlined in the resolution. If it failed to do so, PACE may vote to suspend the Russian delegation's mandate.
By Anna Arutunyan
