OSCE's Power Needed To Ensure Russian Observers Allowed To Ukrainian Election - Moscow

PRAGUE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 28th February, 2019) Moscow hopes that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will use its power to ensure that Russian representatives are allowed to observe the upcoming presidential election in Ukraine after the Ukrainian authorities have prohibited them from doing so, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigoriy Karasin told Sputnik.

"Russia is a responsible member of the international community. We have already submitted our lists of observers for the Ukrainian elections to the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and we hope that this organization will use its authority and competences to ensure that our observers go to Ukraine for monitoring the election process," Karasin said after his talks with the Georgian prime minister's special representative for relations with Russia, Zurab Abashidze, in Prague on Wednesday.

Russia would insist on its observers being allowed to Ukraine, Karasin added, noting that Moscow's attitude to the upcoming Ukrainian relations would depend on this.

On Tuesday, the press service of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that the president had signed the bill banning Russian observers from attending the vote, scheduled for March 31.

The OSCE has said that Kiev's denial to allow Russian representatives to observe the election violated the obligations of the organization's member states.