MOSCOW, December (RIA Novosti) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Saturday the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) of practicing double standards.
"The OSCE practices double standards, especially in the humanitarian sphere. This is a fact," Lavrov said in an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta, a government daily.
The minister cited election monitoring practices by the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, recalling that Russia had sent a large group of its own observers under the ODIHR auspices to recent parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan.
"Their participation in that monitoring mission has shown that the ODIHR is non-transparent and secretive, working in isolation from the OSCE's collective administrative agencies - i.e., its member states. This leads to biased, politically motivated evaluations that are made purportedly on behalf of the OSCE but are not coordinated with the organization's participants," Lavrov said.
The Russian minister stressed that the OSCE should clean up its act as soon as possible.
Speaking on the upcoming meeting of the OSCE foreign ministers in Ljubljana, scheduled for December 5-6, Lavrov said it should lay the groundwork for a real reform of the organization. "We expect the Ljubljana meeting to kick-start the OSCE reform process, make first concrete decisions and adopt a reform plan for 2006," Lavrov said.
According to Lavrov, priority should be given to reviewing the organization's political agenda. "It is necessary to target it to deal with the existing security challenges and bring its structures, institutions and field missions in line with these goals," the Russian foreign minister said.
