Baku -- The Baku Declaration was adopted on Wednesday, July 2 following the 23rd annual session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, which was held in the Azerbaijani capital.
An Interfax-Azerbaijan reporter said that the declaration had been adopted with 99 votes “for,” one “against,” and nine abstentions.
The Russian delegation did not participate in the vote, in protest.
In this declaration, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly underlines the respect for the principles of the inviolability of frontiers and territorial integrity, the peaceful settlement of disputes, equal rights and self-determination of peoples, as stated in the Helsinki Final Act and calls on Russian to reverse the annexation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine.
It also “calls on the Russian Federation to fulfill the commitments entered into under the Aug. 12, 2008 ceasefire agreement to de-occupy the Georgian territory and to respect the fundamental principles of international law.”
The document “welcomes the active engagement of the Swiss OSCE Chairmanship in the crisis in and around Ukraine and the deployment of the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine as well as the activities of the OSCE executive structures and other relevant international actors operating in Ukraine with the aim of reducing tensions, fostering stability and promoting national dialogue.”
The declaration “calls for the creation, on the platform of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, of an inter-parliamentary liaison group on Ukraine in order to de-escalate the situation on the ground and support the country out of the crisis” and “condemns the occupation of the territory of Ukraine.”
The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly “expresses unequivocal support for the sovereignty, political independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine as defined by the country’s Constitution and within its internationally recognized borders” and “views the March 16, 2014 referendum in Crimea as an illegitimate and illegal act, the results of which have no validity whatsoever.”
The declaration “calls upon all participating states to refuse to recognize the forced annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.”
It also “calls on the Russian Federation to end its intervention in Ukraine” and “demands that the Russian Federation desist from its provocative military overflights of the Nordic-Baltic region, immediately withdraw its military forces from the borders of the Baltic States and cease its subversive activities within the ethnic Russian populations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.”
