Demonstrators demonstrate outside the Hofburg Palace during the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Vienna, Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023. A meeting of the Organization for European Security and Co-operation started without Ukraine’s presence , which boycotted the event due to the Russian presence. (AP Photo/Heinz-Peter Bader)

VIENNA (AP) — A meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe began Thursday without the Ukrainian delegation, which called the expected presence of Russian lawmakers “outrageous.”

The two-day gathering of a usually low-key assembly, which coincides with the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has been dominated by controversy over the Russian presence. Austria granted the visas despite sanctions imposed by the European Union and protests from 20 countries, including Britain, France and Canada.

Austria said that as a host country it had an obligation to grant visas to representatives of all OSCE member states. Ukraine and Lithuania said they would not participate if Russia were present.

The Vienna-based OSCE, whose 57 members include Ukraine and Russia, was created during the Cold War as a forum for dialogue between East and West,

The group’s broad program includes peace, human rights, arms control and security issues. The Speaker of the Austrian Parliament, Wolfgang Sobotka, declared that it is “our duty not to close the door to diplomacy” and that “the OSCE, with its inclusive approach and its comprehensive approach to security, can and above all must be part of a solution to this conflict.

“I sympathize with the fact that for some members it is unbearable to be in the same room as the offenders,” said the president of the parliamentary assembly, Margareta Cederfelt, during the opening session. “But for those present today, it is an opportunity to defend Ukraine and confront the lies of the aggressors.”

A Slovak delegate read a statement from the Ukrainian delegation, which said that “the presence of these warmongers in Vienna is an affront to everything the OSCE stands for”.

He added that “they are not here for real dialogue or real cooperation. They are here to spread their propaganda…they are here to try to justify the war crimes they have committed and to desecrate the principles of international law and human decency.”

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