STRASBOURG, April 27 (Itar-Tass) - The spring session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ended on Strasbourg on Friday. The Russian delegation is quite pleased with its results.
Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili’s statement was the main event. Among other things he came out for step-by-step settlement of relations with Russia and also promised not to use force against Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
“Ivanishvili’s statement was far more balanced than President Mikhail Saakashvili’s rhetoric at the PACE session in January. The Russian delegation responded to it positively by and large,” Russia’s chief delegate, State Duma international affairs committee chairman Alexei Pushkov told Itar-Tass.
He said “whereas Saakashvili was radiating active and lasting hostility towards Russia, Ivanishvili is a politician who has been trying to find a way out of the existing situation and he has been doing so sincerely and consistently.”
“Ivanishvili’s calm tone was a positive development at the just-ended session in relations between Russia and Georgia, which were considered in a constructive fashion, and not in an aggressive or confrontational way. In that sense this is a favorable shift. Before, Georgia had no politicians that might bring this kind of message to Europe,” Pushkov said.
He added that “although the session was calm,” “certain progress developed on the issues Russia raised.” In particular, he pointed out that “Russia’s systematic and persistent attention to human rights violations in the Baltic countries is beginning to bear fruit.”
“Council of Europe commissioner for human rights, Nils Muiznieks, who made his first report to the PACE, is now pressing for automatically granting citizenship to the children of non-citizens in Latvia and Estonia. He also acknowledged that attempts at the heroization of Nazism are utterly intolerable,” the Russian legislator said.
The spring session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe was held in Strasbourg on April 22-26.