Moscow, 22 November: Russia is laying responsibility for the damage inflicted on cooperation between Russian and the OSCE's (Operation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) ODIHR (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) on the leadership of this organization that refused to send observers to the Russian State Duma election.

"We did everything we promised to. In response (we received) a demonstrative reluctance to stick to the order established by the Russian legislation, intention to impose an observation scheme of the ODIHR's own invention. Responsibility for the damage inflicted as a result of it on our cooperation with the ODIHR entirely lies on the ODIHR leadership and those who have prompted them to this," a statement by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin says. Its text was posted on Thursday (22 November) on the Russian Foreign Ministry website.

Kamynin described as insinuations reports by Western countries saying that the ODIHR's refusal to send its observers to the Russian election was caused by problems with visas.

"Some capitals have recently made statements that rudely misinterpret the situation that predetermined the refusal by the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to send an observation mission to Russia to monitor the State Duma election on 2 December. Representatives of the State Department, the Commission of the European Communities and several EU member-countries are trying to interpret the incident in a way that the ODIHR's refusal was caused by 'unprecedented restrictions' allegedly introduced by the Russian side in terms of the number of observers and period of monitoring. Insinuations about certain 'problems with the issue of visas' are referred to once again. All this is being done to 'express solidarity' with the above-mentioned decision of the office," he said (in his statement).

Kamynin added that "in its attempt to put the blame on the Russian side, the European Commission representative went even further having expressed 'expectation' that the Russian side will provide compliance of the forthcoming election with guarantees that were given by us at high level on the recent EU-Russian summit in Portugal."

The statement says that Russia does not see any grounds for worries showed by the European Commission.

"Russian President Vladimir Putin assured European partners in Mafra that international observers would be invited in full compliance with our commitments and that we will inform our partners about parameters of monitoring. Let us remind you that the relevant commitments - as envisaged in the OSCE documents - imply inviting representatives of other members of the OSCE, the ODIHR and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and other organizations to 'observe a national election in compliance with the rules established by the law,'" Kamynin said.

He added that "apart from above-mentioned commitments no agreements establishing regulations for the monitoring of election were reached in the OSCE at the intergovernmental level".

"The reason for that is the obstructive policy of a number of Western states blocking proposals to work out clear and acceptable for everyone conditions of the ODIHR monitoring activity. Russia together with other OSCE partners has been making such proposals for over several years. We will continue this work: one cannot put up with the current situation when all the ODIHR internal instructions drawn up and confirmed by nobody knows who are presented as 'the golden standard' of international monitoring of elections," Kamynin said.