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Russia won't be satisfied with partial reinstatement of delegation to PACE, says EU envoy

Vladimir Chizhov said Moscow hopes "for full and unconditional reinstatement of all the rights of our delegation"

MOSCOW, December 10. /TASS/. Russia hopes its delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will be reinstated fully, partial reinstatement won’t do, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov said on Monday.

"A key PACE session will be held in June. It will elect the organization’s secretary general, so increased attention will be focused on it. Some so-to-say well-wishers offer a compromise solution, i.e. to partially reinstate the Russian delegation to PACE, or do it temporarily, or in stages. Naturally, it won’t do with us and we hope for full and unconditional reinstatement of all the rights of our delegation. We also hope the procedural rules will be adjusted in a way to exclude recurrence of such actions by an arithmetic majority in this assemvly," he said.

The Russian delegation to PACE was stripped of key rights, including the right to vote and take part in the assembly’s governing bodies in April 2014 following the developments in Ukraine and Crimea’s reunification with Russia. The issue of restoring the rights of the Russian delegation was raised at PACE twice throughout 2015 but the sanctions were only toughened. In response, Russia suspended its participation in the PACE activities and skipped PACE meetings in 2016-2018 due to the ongoing sanctions.

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