All news

Russia indignant at aggressive rhetoric against PACE MPs who visited Syria — Duma speaker

Those who afford such rhetoric "never think about their countries, they are thinking about themselves only," Vyacheslav Volodin said

ST. PETERSBURG, March 26. /TASS/. Russia is indignant at aggressive rhetoric voiced by some Ukrainian politicians in respect of lawmakers from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and its President Pedro Argamunt who visited Syria with a Russian parliamentary delegation, speaker of the Russian State Duma lower parliament house Vyacheslav Volodin said on Sunday.

"Members of the joint delegation [that visited Syria] represent various European countries," he said at a meeting with Agramunt. "We cannot but be indignant at the aggressive rhetoric we hear from some European politicians, representative of Ukraine in respect of the people who are doing their utmost to facilitate peace settlement, in respect of those who is advocating people and fighting against terrorists."

Those who afford such rhetoric "never think about their countries, they are thinking about themselves only," Volodin said. "I think sooner or later voters will make their choice as it is at odds with common sense."

He stressed that the issues that are in focus during the PACE president’s visit "are of paramount important for each country." "These are the issues of rebuffing terrorism. And here, despite of our political attitudes and party affiliations, we must consolidate our efforts to establish peace and uproot terrorism as soon as possible," he stressed.

According to media reports, Vladimir Aryev, who leads the Ukrainian delegation to the PACE, said that national delegations were allegedly shocked by Agramunt’s visit to Syria. Another Ukrainian lawmaker, Georgy Logvinsky, said he wants to know who financed that visit.

A delegation of Russian State Duma lawmakers along with representatives from PACE and its President Pedro Agramunt visited Syria on March 20-21 at the invitation of Syrian parliament speaker Khadiya Abbas. Over their stay in Syria, the lawmakers met with Syrian President Bashar Assad and had talks at the Syrian parliament. Apart from that, the delegation visited the Russia airbase at Hmeymim where they met with officials from the Russian center for reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria. The Russian delegation included lawmakers from all the four parliamentary factions. Europe was represented by ten lawmakers from Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Serbia and Belgium.