The Russian Foreign Ministry called the cancellation of visas for OSCE conference participants from Russia arbitrary.

The cancellation by the Polish authorities of the visas of Russian experts to participate in the event under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) was a blatant act of arbitrariness. This was announced on October 6 by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova.

According to her, we are talking about the "Warsaw Conference on the Human Dimension" held by the Finnish chairmanship on October 6-17, which is a substitute for the OSCE Review Meeting on the Human Dimension.

"In recent years, Russia and a number of other OSCE participating states have been forced to boycott this event at the level of an official government delegation. And it's not just that it's being conducted in violation of the Organization's Rules of Procedure. Poland has finally confessed its absolute incompetence as the "host country" of the OSCE forums," Zakharova is quoted as saying on the Foreign Ministry's website.

Zakharova stressed that the Polish authorities had shown complete incompetence and Russophobia by depriving Russian public figures of the opportunity to participate in the conference.

She also recalled that such actions by Poland grossly violate OSCE commitments to ensure the participation of NGOs.

"We are confident that the current situation should finally convince the participating states of the need to start negotiations on the relocation of the headquarters of the ODIHR (Bureau for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. — Ed.) and all major official OSCE events from Poland," Zakharova concluded.

The day before, it was reported that Poland had cancelled the visas of representatives of the Russian Public Institute of Electoral Law (ROIIP), who were supposed to take part in the OSCE conference. The institute added that the visa cancellation letter was sent without "specifying the motives and grounds for such a decision" on the last working day before the start of the conference. It was noted that the participants of the event received visas on the basis of an invitation from the organizers of the OSCE conference, then there were no questions about the submitted documents when issuing visas.

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