MOSCOW, October 31. /TASS/. Russia’s Federation Council (upper house) chairperson Valentina Matviyenko on Friday urged the Verkhovna Rada to unfreeze relations with the Russian parliament.
“We will hope that the new Rada will take steps towards normalizing relations between our countries,” she wrote on the house’s official website.
“For its part, the Federation Council is ready to do everything necessary for this, primarily to contribute to unfreezing of inter-parliamentary relations,” she said.
It is not Russia that initiated the move for blocking inter-parliamentary relations. “But we are ready to restore them. We’re ready for the dialogue with the Rada what we’ve repeatedly talked about. But no response was given,” Matviyenko said.
She expressed hope that “the care of the country’s fate, realism and even elementary pragmatism prevail in deputies’ moods and in the activity of the Rada and the Ukrainian parliament will take steps towards restoring contacts with the Russian parliament”.
“During the dialogue, the parties can bring about understanding of their positions and find common points that will allow us to avoid confrontation and improve fruitful cooperation,” Matviyenko said.
“Ukraine needs a responsible parliament the efforts of which will be aimed at developing relations with Russia and solving the country’s key problems and not at heightening tension inside the society that the previous Rada did,” she said.
“I believe that primarily, Ukrainian citizens waited for this from the new Rada,” Matviyenko said.