Russia has refused to attend a meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Georgia to avoid provocations against members of its delegation, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
A meeting of the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights was scheduled for September 16-17 in Georgian capital Tbilisi. The meeting was meant to include the participation of a number of Russian officials.
However, on September 10 Georgia notified Russia that State Duma deputy Sergei Markov would not be issued a visa as he had visited Georgia's "occupied regions" of Abkhazia and South Ossetia without prior consent from the Georgian government.
Russia recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states two weeks after a five-day war with Georgia in August 2008, which began when Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia in an attempt to bring it back under central control.
Since then, Russia has deployed thousands of troops and border guards in the two regions, which Georgia considers part of its sovereign territory.
"They sent a letter to the legal committee chairman in which they stressed that Georgia's attempt to create an unacceptable precedent in the work of PACE bodies calls into question the possibility of holding Council of Europe events in Georgia until Tbilisi changes its biased visa policy," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said.
"No doubt the Georgian authorities' true aim is to frustrate the participation of the Russian delegation in the session, even in defiance of their international commitments," he added.
Georgia has not yet made any comment on the situation.
MOSCOW, September 15 (RIA Novosti)
