MOSCOW, September 11. /ITAR-TASS/. State Duma Vice-Speaker Ivan Melnikov on Thursday called on European parliamentarians to take a way of confidence restoration, but not confrontation with Russia.
In his speech at a European conference of representatives of parliaments in Norway’s capital Oslo, he reproached European leaders for ignoring sentiments of own people and taking the way of confrontation with Russia, instead of solving own internal problems.
The results of elections to the European Parliament and assessments of experts show that people in Europe are concerned over other problems - high unemployment and austerity, he said. “Under such conditions, when it is necessary to step up mutually beneficial partnership, European leaders for some reason take the way of risks and confrontation with Russia on issues where we long ago could find peaceful solutions, if we really hear ordinary people, respect their rights, take their interests into consideration and discuss arguments of each other.”
Individual and economic sanctions and the fact that the Russian delegation is denied rights in the PACE are far from democratic discussion ideals, he noted. “All this is not in the interests of our peoples.”
State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin’s call for restoring confidence should be heeded, the Russian legislator said.