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Turchinov submits resolution on punishing deputies who met their Russian colleagues

On September 17, 24 members of the “For Peace and Stability” deputy group arrived in Moscow to meet their fellow-deputies from the Russian State Duma, including Speaker Sergei Narsyhkin

KIEV, September 23 /ITAR-TASS/. Alexander Turchinov, the speaker of Verkhovnaya Rada (Ukrainian parliament) on Tuesday submitted a draft resolution to Ukrainian deputies proposing that a group of deputies who visited the Russian State Duma last week be deprived of their right to attend plenary sessions, the Ukrainian parliament’s press service said on Tuesday.

On September 17, 2014, 24 members of the “For Peace and Stability” deputy group arrived in Moscow to meet their fellow-deputies from the Russian State Duma, including Speaker Sergei Narsyhkin.

Turchinov also asked Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry and Ukraine’s Security Service “to give legal assessment to the treacherous actions of people’s deputies that contributed to separatism and aggression against Ukraine.”

The draft resolution also suggests deducting the Ukrainian deputies’ salaries for the days they did not attend the meetings of parliamentary committees, commissions and factions.

The press service of the “For Peace and Stability” deputy group said on September 22 that Turchinov’s calls to punish the deputies who had visited the Russian State Duma should be regarded as a propaganda campaign by a political force, which he is leading, ahead of snap parliamentary elections slated for October 26.

The deputies said it had been their personal initiative to visit Moscow as part of implementation of a peace plan suggested by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russian State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin on Monday described Turchinov’s remarks as contradicting “the parliamentary tradition and all norms of law and morale.”

“I only regret that the speaker of Verkhovnaya Rada (Ukrainian parliament) could say such words,” Naryshkin said, adding that the Russian State Duma would continue its contacts with Ukrainian deputies.

“We have always maintained and will continue maintaining contacts and cooperation with deputies of Ukraine’s Verkhovnaya Rada, with sober-minded and responsible Ukrainian deputies,” Naryshkin told journalists.

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