VILNIUS - The Russian Foreign Ministry has blasted the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) recently passed Vilnius resolution over a section equating the crimes of Nazi and Stalinist regimes.
The Vilnius resolution was passed on July 3 following the first ever OSCE session held in the Baltics.
Lithuania and Slovenia -- both former communist states -- were the driving forces behind the resolution.
"We consider unacceptable the fact that in the OSCE's parliamentary
assembly resolution there is an attempt to distort history with
political goals," AFP quoted the Russian foreign ministry's spokesman Andrei
Nesterenko as saying.
"This does not contribute to creating an atmosphere of
trust and cooperation between the member states of this body," he added.
Though Russian representatives walked out on the vote, it was overwhelmingly passed by the 56 nation organization.
The resolution said 20th-century Europe had faced "two major totalitarian
regimes, the Nazi and the Stalinist, which brought genocide, violations of human
rights and freedoms, war crimes and crimes against humanity."
It urged all OSCE members to take a "united stand against all totalitarian
rule from whatever ideological background" and slammed the "glorification of
totalitarian regimes, including the holding of public demonstrations glorifying
the Nazi or Stalinist past."
