STRASBOURG, April 10 (RIA Novosti) – The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on Thursday voted to exclude Russia from the Assembly’s managerial bodies through the end of the year.
The move excludes Russia from the PACE Bureau, Presidential Committee and Permanent Council.
The document, an amendment to a resolution, also includes calls to suspend Russia’s rights to participate in election observance missions and strip Russia of its right to vote.
The head of the Russian delegation to PACE, Alexei Pushkov, condemned the decision by the assembly.
“PACE’s decision to ban Russian from participation in managerial bodies is a serious rights violation,” Pushkov said in a statement.
“PACE has betrayed its own principles of human rights and the rule of law,” he added.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe debated the motion over Russia's actions surrounding Crimea. The assembly claims that by violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity, Russia jeopardized international security and stability.
The Russian delegation earlier announced it was not taking part in the debate.
“We decided not to take part,” a source in the Russian delegation told RIA Novosti, adding that the question of Russia’s expulsion from PACE is not on the table right now.
Pushkov meanwhile called the entire debate on Russia’s credentials a political farce.
“The Russian delegation refused to take part in the discussion or even remain in the assembly hall. This political farce is repulsive,” Pushkov said in a statement posted on his Twitter.
In February, the Ukrainian parliament backed by far-right movements ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, amended the constitution and scheduled an early presidential election for May 25.
Moscow has described the uprising in Kiev as an illegitimate fascist coup and a military seizure of power, which resulted in it taking steps to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine, including the reunification of Crimea. It blames the ongoing crisis in the country on Ukrainian nationalists and their aggressive rhetoric.
Moscow has insisted that a federal form of government is the only way out of the protracted political stalemate in Ukraine, currently a unitary state which is de-facto split into a Ukrainian-speaking west and a Russian-speaking east and south.
