MOSCOW, October 23. /TASS/. The delegation of Russian State Duma members will arrive in Geneva on Sunday to take part in the second BRICS parliamentary forum and 135th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). The delegation is led by Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the Duma’s International Affairs Committee.

BRICS parliamentary forum

Russian MPs assign great importance to the BRICS parliamentary forum. "The idea to set up this platform initially belonged to Russia, and holding the forum for the second time proves its viability," Slutsky told TASS, reminding that the first BRICS parliamentary forum was held in Moscow on 8 June 2015. On the agenda of Geneva meetings are issues of fighting against terrorism, as well as matters of implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and Agenda-20430 adopted at the UN summit.

Russia also plans to once again call for establishing the BRICS inter-parliamentary assembly. "Previous State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin put forward this proposal before. I think that it is necessary to devise program basis for forming the inter-parliamentary assembly in the next year," Slutsky noted.

This project "is promising for decades in the future," he added. "Sometime, BRICS inter-parliamentary assembly will allow to create the system of developing model laws and work in the sphere of comparative legislature. Integration within BRICS will only grow stronger with time," the lawmaker said.

IPU Assembly

The Duma delegation, together with the Russian Federation Council members, will also participate in the 135th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Among main issues on the agenda is consideration of resolutions on human rights violations as root causes of conflicts, and of parliaments’ role in preventing outside interference into domestic policy of sovereign states.

"We plan to engage in active debate on these issues, especially considering interference of US and their NATO allies into domestic policy of sovereign states. Everyone remembers what conflicts led to in former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and Syria and Ukraine today," the MP noted. "No country in the world should have an opportunity to interfere into constitutional order of other states either legislatively or with the help of military force," he concluded.

Stronger IPU role in Russia’s inter-parliamentary cooperation

At the same time, the Russian delegation will step up work at the IPU platform in general, Slutsky said. "This is the oldest inter-parliamentary organization that brings together over 100 countries, that is dozens of votes both in the UN General Assembly and other authoritative international organizations. We will explain our position on all key issues on the international agenda," he said.

The Duma delegation thinks that Russia has very good chances to strengthen its influence in IPU. Russian MP Mikhail Emelyanov told TASS that "attempts to paint Russia as the country in isolation, like PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) is doing, will hardly work here."

"Participation in such representative organizations as IPU and BRICS forum are extremely important and serve as evidence that Russia is not in isolation. BRICS and IPU implement their own policy, without consulting with the United States and the West. US was forced to leave IPU because the organization did not want to follow their course of constructing the unipolar world," he said. "Russia is respected in the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Many bilateral meetings are held where parliamentarians express if not support, than understanding of our position on Ukraine and Syria," he added.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union is the oldest international organization in the world. It was established in 1889. It currently includes over 160 countries, and 10 other organizations have status of association partners.