PACE Calls for Russia’s Immediate Withdrawal from Organization

ANKARA (AA) – The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has approved a resolution demanding the immediate withdrawal of Russia from the human rights organization.

A total of 216 delegates voted in favor of the decision while three lawmakers abstained.

“The Parliamentary Assembly unanimously considered that the Russian Federation should no longer be a member state of the organization,” Council of Europe leaders said in a joint statement.

The Committee of Ministers will hold an extraordinary meeting early Wednesday amid Russia’s decision to withdraw from the Council of Europe, the statement added.

Facing growing international isolation over the war in Ukraine, Russia on Tuesday announced the launch of procedures to withdraw from the Council of Europe.

A formal notification signed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was handed to the council’s Secretary General, Marija Pejcinovic Buris, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website on day 19 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

It said members of the European Union and NATO had abused their dominance in the organization, turning it into an anti-Russia tool and refraining from equal dialogue and all principles that were laid out in the Council of Europe’s foundation.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said late Tuesday that PACE’s decision to demand Russia’s withdrawal from the human rights organization “needed to be done in 2014.”