MOSCOW, December 11. /TASS/. Russia is reassessing the East-West balance of its foreign policy, aware of past-years' priority which had favoured the West, the leader of parliament's lower house said on Thursday.

Observing success of Eurasian integration, projects partnering states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, “journalists and experts have started talking about Russia making a sharp turn towards the East,” State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin told deputies addressing Russia-European Union relations.

“Russia is a big country, a big part of Europe, a huge Eurasian country,” he said. “That is why we have two full-fledged vectors - the Eastern and the Western.”

Possibly “they were not balanced before and we must admit that several years ago we put more priority on the Western vector,” the house leader said, noting that “the European Union has been and will remain a major partner”.

“Snow that has fallen will melt sooner or later,” he said, referring to a chill in relations with Europe over developments in Ukraine.