MOSCOW, August 28, /ITAR-TASS/. Russian State Duma speaker Sergey Naryshkin has agreed to take part in a meeting of the PACE presidential committee, hoping this would help improve understanding in the dialogue with the Assembly over the Russian delegation’s full-scale participation in PACE activities.
He expressed his intention in an interview to the government-run daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
Asked if he saw any changes in the European legislators’ comments and sentiment regarding the developments in Ukraine, Naryshkin expressed the hope that both had changed considerably.
“We can see changes in some politicians’ vocabulary and actions. In the emphases they make and in their analysis of the Ukrainian crisis,” Naryshkin said.
“Politicians cannot afford to turn a blind eye on and deaf ear to obvious facts indefinitely,” Naryshkin said. “Was it Russia that staged an armed government coup in Ukraine? Was it Russia that disbanded Ukraine’s Constitutional Court and two parliamentary factions?” he asked.
“Is Russia to blame for the murder of thousands of civilians in the course of the punitive operation in the southeast of the country? Is Russia guilty of crude violations of journalists’ rights and the freedom of speech in Ukraine?” Naryshkin said, adding that he was referring to the restrictions on journalists’ activity, their abductions and even murders in Ukraine.
“Is it Russia who is hiding from fair trial the murderers who on May 2 in Odessa burned alive several dozen people? Lastly, was it Russia that cynically delayed the decision to let in the Russian humanitarian aid convoy?” Naryshkin asked.
“For this reason we feel that the opinion of the political elite in the European countries over Ukraine has been changing,” Naryshkin said. “We live in a time when it is hard to conceal the truth, even in a situation when the so-called North Atlantic propaganda ministry is working so intensively. The truth gets through no matter what.