Norway has reiterated its concern about an investigation into the 2009 prison death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky but said it has no plans to impose any sanctions.
"Norway has no tradition of introducing unilateral actions against individual countries or persons. This policy remains also in the Magnitsky case," the Norwegian Embassy in Moscow said in a statement.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, writing about Magnitsky in a letter to a group of the country's lawmakers earlier this month, said Olso was following the case closely but its policy was to only accept sanctions reached by the UN Security Council.
In response to Magnitsky's death, the U.S. has passed the Magnitsky Act that blacklists Russian officials implicated of human rights violations. Magnitsky's supporters have been pushing other countries to adopt similar sanctions.
Norway's foreign minister said that while Oslo would stop short of imposing sanctions, it would use its membership in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe to raise the human rights agenda in Russia.
The embassy said Oslo also has shared its concerns repeatedly with Russian officials.
"The Norwegian government remains concerned over the manner in which the Russian authorities have handled the follow-up to Mr. Magnitsky's death in custody and over the post-mortem trial against Mr. Magnitsky," the embassy statement said. "We have raised our concerns with Russian authorities on numerous occasions, both bilaterally and multilaterally."
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