ITAR-TASS, Russia
December 01, 2017 Friday 1:51 PM GMT


Kiev fails to fulfil its duties as PABSEC chair - Russian foreign ministry

MOSCOW December 1

Ukraine has failed to perform its duties as the chair of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC),
the Russian Foreign Ministry reported on Friday.

MOSCOW, December 1. /TASS/. Ukraine has failed to perform its duties
as the chair of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic
Cooperation (PABSEC), the Russian Foreign Ministry reported on Friday.

"It is becoming clear that Ukraine is failing to fulfil its
obligations as the PABSEC chair: there are violations of the general
norms and principles of work of multilateral organizations, the
failure to provide full-format participation in the events for
delegations and a breach of the basic principles of parliamentarism,"
the ministry stressed.

The ministry reiterated that the Russian parliamentary delegation has
not received an invitation to the PABSEC General Assembly session in
Kiev, "which also violates the order of the PABSEC operation."
"Unfortunately, these violations of the delegations’ rights occur
under the passive eye of its other members. This issue is thought to
require a serious discussion within the Assembly," the Foreign
Ministry stated.

"As for the Ukrainian amendments themselves, they were introduced to a
pre-agreed draft declaration at the last moment and had a provocative
character," the ministry noted. "The Ukrainians abused, in fact, their
chairmanship functions, having ‘twisted the PABSEC delegates’ arms’
and achieved the adoption of non-balanced wordings that go beyond the
economic theme that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea
Economic Cooperation should be dealing with."

"Moreover, the final declaration of the session that was dedicated to
the 25th anniversary of the Assembly and had to be steeped in the
spirit of unification fell prey to Ukraine’s destructive aspirations,"
the ministry noted.

The Foreign Ministry also pointed out that, according to the received
information, "Ukraine’s chairmanship in fact barred the Armenian
parliamentary delegation from joint work on the amendments and the
final declaration on the issues of fundamental nature." "The Armenian
delegation finally had to leave the conference hall in protest," the
ministry reported.

PABSEC-2017

The PABSEC was established on February 26, 1993, and includes 12
countries: Albania, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Armenia, Greece, Georgia,
Moldova, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine. According to the
organization’s regulations, on July 6, 2017, Ukraine took over the
PABSEC chairmanship for a six-month term. Albania will be chairing the
PABSEC for the next six months.

This year Russia did not participate in the PABSEC session in Kiev due
to the absence of an invitation from Ukraine which had to be sent by
Verkhovna Rada Chairman Andrey Paruby. The head of the Russian
delegation at this organization, Mikhail Yemelyanov, called it an
unprecedented case.

The offensive incident occurred when Armenia’s delegation was not
invited to discuss the final text of the declaration. According to
Armenia’s parliament, the PABSEC General Assembly finally adopted the
declaration with regard to Ukraine’s amendment on the necessity to
help restore the territorial integrity of the Black Sea Economic
Cooperation member states which runs counter to "the comprehensive
principles of the international law: the principles of the non-use of
force and the threat of force, territorial integrity and the peoples’
rights to free self-determination." The Armenian delegation left the
PABSEC conference hall in Kiev in protest.