Lavrov slams West's attempts to bar Russian delegation from voting at OSCE PA

The West's attempts to bar the Russian delegation from voting at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) are outrageous, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

"Certainly, this is outrageous. First of all, they are trying to bar our delegation from voting, and before that, they refused to issue visas when the parliamentary assembly was convening outside of Vienna, where the OSCE headquarters is located. And they didn’t issue visas to the UK, and then again in other directions. This is outrageous," the top Russian diplomat told the State Duma, TASS reports.

According to him, justifications for national decisions on sanctions are "merely empty words." "If you took on to hold an international conference of an international organization where this or that country participates, you should issue visas to everyone," Lavrov stressed.