Russian Delegation to Leave PACE Session if Right to Vote Remains Suspended

STRASBOURG, January 28 (Sputnik) – Russian representatives will leave the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) if the organization votes not to reinstate Russia’s right to vote, the head of the Russian delegation, Alexei Pushkov, said Wednesday.

Russia's PACE delegate Leonid Slutsky said earlier in the day a group of UK and Ukrainian delegates had prepared a series of amendments to a draft resolution that reinstates Russia’s right to vote in PACE.

“If we are deprived of our right to vote, we are leaving,” Pushkov said, adding that in this case “there will be no contacts with PACE at all.”

On Wednesday, Pushkov told reporters that the right to vote in PACE was the Russian delegation's key demand.

Earlier this week, an Austrian delegate to PACE, Stefan Schennach, put forward a draft resolution reinstating Russia's right to vote and participate in the governing bodies of PACE, rescinded last year over Crimea’s decision to rejoin Russia and the crisis in Ukraine.

The Russian delegation to PACE is facing an “exceptionally difficult” vote on the ratification of its credentials in PACE, Alexei Pushkov said.

“An exceptionally tough vote on the credentials of the Russian delegation is ahead today. Our opponents threw in 19 radical amendments to the resolution [on Russian credentials in PACE] today,” Pushkov wrote on Twitter.

A Wednesday PACE plenary session will vote on the draft resolution restoring Russia’s voting rights as well as its right to participate in the governing bodies of the assembly.

The draft resolution also prohibits Russian delegates from acting as rapporteurs, participating in election monitoring missions or representing PACE in other bodies. These restrictions do not significantly limit Russia’s membership in the Council of Europe, and the draft was positively met by the Russian delegation.

The resolution condemns the reunification of Crimea with Russia as "illegal annexation” and calls for its reversal.

Russia's voting credentials were rescinded in 2014 over Crimea's decision to rejoin Russia in March and the crisis in Ukraine. The country's delegation walked out of PACE's spring session and refused to attend the summer session in protest.