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Ukraine’s participation in Nov session of CIS IPA to be clear after election to Rada

“No one knows what the Verkhovna Rada will look like after the elections, who will be the speaker", - Anna Vakhotskaya, the press secretary of Verkhovha Rada speaker Alexander Turchinov, told

KIEV, October 2. /TASS/. Ukraine’s parliament will decide whether its speaker will take part in a November session of the Inter-parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) after the early parliamentary elections (due on October 26), Anna Vakhotskaya, the press secretary of Verkhovha Rada speaker Alexander Turchinov, told TASS on Wednesday.

When asked what was the Verkhovna Rada’s reaction to an invitation from Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of the Russian Federation Council upper parliament house, to take part in the next session of the CIS Inter-parliamentary Assembly, she said she did not know. “I have no information about it. But it should be born in mind that Ukraine is having a parliamentary campaign now,” Vakhotskaya noted.

“No one knows what the Verkhovna Rada will look like after the elections, who will be the speaker. Most probably, the issue of participation in the Inter-parliamentary Assembly will be decided by a new Rada,” she said, adding that if the new Rada failed to elect its speaker quick enough, it would commission Turchinov’s deputy to the session of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly. “In view of the current situation, the Verkhovna Rada speaker is unlikely to attend (the session),” she noted.

Turchinov is a co-chairman of the commission for cooperation between the Ukrainian and Russian parliaments.