Russia yesterday won back its voting rights in the Council of Europe, nine months after they were suspended for alleged gross violations of human rights by troops in rebel Chechnya.
The body's Parliamentary Assembly voted by 88 to 20 with 11 abstentions to restore Moscow's privileges. At the same time, the assembly said it regretted that Russia had not made more progress on human rights and the search for a political solution to the conflict.
In Moscow, the foreign ministry welcomed the decision and said it could lead to better co-operation between Russia and the Council of Europe.
"The delegates (of the Assembly) realistically looked at the situation and understood that Russia is not a pupil who can be sent out from the classroom and that co-operation with it . . . will yield a better result than confrontation," Interfax news agency quoted the foreign ministry as saying.
"The restoration of our voting rights enhances opportunities for co-operation between Russia and the Assembly," the Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying.
The council, which numbers 43 member states following the admission of former Soviet republics Armenia and Azerbaijan earlier yesterday, has little clout in Europe. But pronouncements by its assembly are viewed with great importance in Russia and the organisation is seen as an authority on rights and democracy in eastern Europe.
A Russian human rights campaigner and former Soviet dissident called on Europe to impose sanctions against Moscow because of the Chechen war.
In an interview published yesterday, Mr Sergei Kovalyov, a former colleague of the Nobel prize-winning dissident Andrei Sakharov, told the Kommersant daily he was "in favour of sanctions against Russia". Sanctions are necessary in order to lift the anti-war debate above "the banal level of slogans," he said.
In Strasbourg, President Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan accused the international community yesterday of ignoring the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh as his country and its neighbour in the Caucasus, Armenia, joined the Council of Europe as the 42nd and 43rd members.
Mr Aliyev said it had been eight years since over a million ethnic Azeris were forced out of Nagorno-Karabakh - a mountainous region inside Azerbaijan - by ethnic Armenian fighters.
For his part, President Robert Kocharian of Armenia said the "peace process requires patience and time but certainly has prospects for success."
The council had insisted on welcoming the two at the same time, and both presidents signed the European Convention on Human Rights.