If we are put in the corner again, we shall have nothing to do at the Council of Europe – Russian senator

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Mikhail Margelov, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Russian Federation Council, the deputy head of the Russian delegation to PACE finds it correct to leave the Council of Europe, in case the Assembly during its autumn session breaches the decision of the PACE presidential committee and bereaves the Russian delegation of its mandate. As a REGNUM correspondent informs, on September 15, during a briefing at the Russian State Duma, Margelov declared: "We will not allow any discrimination, and if they try to put us into the corner once again, sorry, we have nothing to do with such institution.”

Margelov stressed that two weeks ago, a session of the presidential committee in Paris actually passed a “consensus resolution” not to undermine the situation and conduct a professional discussion of what happened in the Caucasus. “The presidential committee with participation of the leaders of all five political groups of the assembly decided that they would promote a full-fledged discussion of the events in North Caucasus,” said Margelov, stressing that the resolution stated that the discussion must also ensure “that neither the mandate of the Russian delegation nor the mandate of the Georgian delegation were called into question.”

Meantime, according to him, the last day when it was still possible to introduce documents for their consideration in the Assembly, a draft resolution was thrown in, where he found with surprise a signature of Mátyás Eörsi, the leader of the Liberals, who also participated in the meeting of the presidential committee and “the process of making the consensus decision that the leaders of political groups will not undermine the situation”.

It is worth mentioning, on September 12, 24 from 363 members of PACE, including Baltic countries, Poland and Ukraine, made a suggestion to bereave the  Russian delegation of its mandate, which means the right to vote at the autumn session, where the question of the armed conflict in the Caucasus will be discussed.