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Russia ready to get back to PACE in January 2015 - Duma speaker

“I am confident PACE has a chance to realize its vast potential and act as a key tool to overcome with the European credibility gap,” Naryshkin stressed

© Sergey Fadeichev/TASS

MOSCOW, November 20. /TASS/. Russia’s delegation is ready to resume its full-fledged participation in the work of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe /PACE/ in January 2015, speaker of the Russian State Duma lower parliament house Sergei Naryshkin said in an article published in the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily on Thursday.

Read also

Participants of PACE meeting urge to restore Russian delegation’s powers

He said that progress was needed in a range of directions in order to overcome the Ukrainian crisis and uphold the authority of PACE. “Although we still have very big, if not irreconcilable, differences in our approaches to the Ukrainian crisis, our colleagues from PACE are beginning to understand that a dialogue is vitally needed. And the invitation to meet again they have sent us is an extra evidence to this,” he said.

Even aware of expert pessimism, “I am confident PACE has a chance to realize its vast potential and act as a key tool to overcome with the European credibility gap,” Naryshkin stressed.

But, in his words, “much is to be understood and, what is most important, much is to be done” from updating the agenda to free it from empty addle things and add really topical issues to a profound reform of the Assembly’s procedures to guarantee actual equality of all delegations and lawmakers and rule out any procedural pretexts for bureaucratic “cleansing” of unwanted topics and proposals.”

The Assembly is called to be a pier in the process of reinforcement of international law, which is currently facing trials. Its resolutions, especially in the present-day environment, should serve as an example of soundness, objectivity and legal purity, he noted. “Today, there it is not time for empty and unrealizable declarations,” he stressed.

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Foreign policy PACE

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