MOSCOW, March 31, /ITAR-TASS/. The State Duma (lower house of Russian parliament) will adopt a statement on the situation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Tuesday, April 1.
“Increasingly active attempts are made to destroy the channels for and the very foundation of the pan-European inter-parliamentary dialogue with Russia, which has been effectively working in the PACE for almost two decades,” the draft statement says. “The most destructive factor is the proposal to strip the delegation of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of its mandate in the PACE, a proposal that is based on partial information and biased assessments of the situation in Ukraine and Crimea.”
“This approach does not help implement the PACE tasks of ensuring human rights, democracy and rule of law, it serves the interests of the forces that do not like the successful development of multifaceted and future cooperation between Russia and its European partners,” said the document that was submitted by State Duma speaker Sergei Naryshkin and the heads of all Duma factions.
“The State Duma finds such situation inconsistent either with the present-day realities or with the development of parliamentarianism in Europe and urges its PACE colleagues to take energetic and joint efforts to counter radical nationalism and attempts to set European nations against each other and revive Cold War phobias. We are confident that a balanced approach will prevail in the PACE in favour of further cooperation with Russia, which must not be a hostage of political considerations or external manipulations,” the statement said.
“The State Duma believes that relations between the brotherly peoples of Russia and Ukraine will forever remain friendly despite external provocations. Such provocations were undertaken many times in the past, but history always put everything in its place,” the document said.