Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticized the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Friday over its monitoring role in Belarus's presidential election.

The monitoring group "was prejudiced in its comments on the procedure itself and the results, and thus it played an inflammatory role," Lavrov said, quoted by Russian news agencies.

The OSCE has said the Belarussian vote, in which President Alexander Lukashenko won re-election for a third term, "failed to meet OSCE commitments for democratic elections." Lavrov, however, said, "We have no reason to question the results of the election."

He was speaking after Belarussian riot police, on Friday, broke up a five-day opposition rally protesting Lukashenko's re-election at a downtown square in the capital of Minsk, and took away about 200 demonstrators in police trucks.

Opposition supporters began to rally in the square on Sunday night after polls closed, claiming the presidential vote was rigged and demanding a rerun. Their numbers had dwindled as the week progressed.

"I would not call the scenes I saw on TV today the use of force. In fact, the coverage from Minsk is nothing as compared with the violence we observe in some European capitals," Lavrov said.

Election observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States declared the Belarussian vote open and transparent.

Russia also approved of Sunday's election as being fair and legitimate. "There is every reason to believe that the election has been held in conformity with universally-recognized standards, and its legitimacy is beyond any doubt," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Lukashenko on his re-election a day after the win.

Source: Xinhua