France, Switzerland and Armenia did not take part in the vote on the anti-Russian resolution, which took place at the plenary session of the OSCE PA annual session in Helsinki, explaining their actions by the absence of the Russian delegation.
"The decision on this situation should be based on a dialogue, but both sides are needed for this. Therefore, we decided not to take part in the vote," TASS quoted a member of the French delegation Alain Neri as saying, he was also supported by the representatives of Armenia and Switzerland.
The Italian delegation noted that it is impossible to consider the resolution, "without allowing the accused side to justify itself," pointing out that such a step in the absence of the Russian delegation "practically denies the existence of democracy" in the West.
In the end, the resolution was still adopted: 96 votes were given "for", 7 "against", 32 abstained.
As the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Relations HSE Andrew Suzdaltsev stated in an interview with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, the action of the delegations of Armenia, France and Switzerland does not mean that they do not agree with the anti-Russian policy, it is more likely that they just expressed their complaints about the procedural matters. "They talked about the procedure. They are all in full agreement. But they would like to see the Russian delegation also participating in this, they do not want to criticize it behind its back," the expert explained.
"They are not against the anti-Russian policy, they agree with it. They just need the procedure itself," he stressed.
