MOSCOW. July 2 (Interfax) - A session of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) will be senseless, Russian Permanent Representative to the OSCE Andrei Kelin said on air with the Kommersant FM radio station on Thursday.
"Unfortunately, now the very session becomes senseless because it will be incomplete without the participation of the Russian delegation and many understand this perfectly. How will dialogue come without comprehensive participation of our delegation? Developing decisions and ideas will impossible," he said.
Finland, which did not allow entry to Russian State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin and other delegation members to attend the summer session of the OSCE PA, could have been pressured on issuing visas, Kelin said.
"Of course most probably pressure was applied, it did not go without this. The decisions, which were made in the European Union, and sanction lists contained quite vague wording. They could be interpreted this or that way. However, the most harsh variant was chosen," he said.
It has been reported that the Finnish authorities refused entry to the country to five members of the Russian delegation headed by Naryshkin under the pretext that the EU included some Russian parliamentarians in the so-called sanction lists. The Russian delegation planned to attend the 24th session of the OSCE PA in Helsinki.