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Russia refuses to attend UN Security Council’s informal meeting with pro-Kiev activists

UNITED NATIONS, April 01, /ITAR-TASS/. Russia stayed away from an informal meeting of UN Security Council with pro-Kiev activists - journalist Valentyna Samar and the former president of the Mejlis (Council) of the Crimean Tatar people, Mustafa Dzhemilev.

Russian Federation’s mission at the UN issued a statement dismissing the event organized by Lithuania as a ‘propaganda show’ that did not have anything to do with the Security Council’s activity.

“We categorically refuse to associate with the Security Council the propaganda show sponsored by Lithuania and involving odious personalities,” the mission said. “A get-together of this kind cannot a priori provide whatever unbiased information on the situation in Crimea, a constituent territory of the Russian Federation.”

“Quite naturally, the Russian delegation will ignore this tasteless undertaking,” the report said.

The meeting with the activists bolstering the regime in Kiev was held under the so-called Arria Formula, which envisions free discussions between diplomats and the representatives of civic society and nongovernmental organizations. The Russian mission’s statement noted a misuse of the format.

“It was devised for confidential discussions of knotty political issues but it used at times as a tool for self-advertising in front of the mass media […], and this undermines the Security Council’s reputation,” the statement said.

The Lithuanian delegation to the UN peddled the informal meeting as an open one but half an hour after its start when, reporters were asked to leave the hall Mustafa Dzhemilev was delivering his anti-Russian speech.

“This is a wish of the Lithuanian delegation,” a worker of the UN Secretariat taking part in the event told Itar-Tass.