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Speaker of Russia’s upper house to meet with Ban Ki-moon despite US trip cancellation

Valentina Matviyenko cancelled her trip to the US due to a restricted visa she got

© ITAR-TASS/Sergey Bobylev

MOSCOW, August 27. /TASS/. The Speaker of the upper house of Russian parliament, Valentina Matviyenko plans to meet with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in spite of the cancellation of a visit to the US she was expected to make at the very end of August and the beginning of September.

"I thanked Secretary General Ban for his readiness to meet and we’ll surely organize the meeting but the timing will be different," she said.

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Matviyenko recalled Ban Ki-moon was expected to participate in the functions of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which the Russian delegation led by her had been invited to.

The Russian official also dwelled on the relation of Russia and the West.

"We have an expansive and positive agenda in relations with both the EU and the US," Matviyenko said. "We speak all the time about fruitful collaboration and abandoning of the Cold War mentality."

Matviyenko who heads the upper house of Russia’s parliament earlier received an official invitation to take part in the 4th World Conference of Speakers of Parliament from member states of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which will take place in New York from August 31 to September 2. This event will be preceded by the 10th meeting of women speakers of parliament due to take place on August 29-30. Russia’s Federation Council speaker earlier said she did not rule out that she might be denied a US visa as a person on the US sanctions list.

The United States issued a visa to Matviyenko on August 26, but it has a number of restrictions for her stay in the United States, which the speaker of the Russian Federation Council considers to be inadmissible. The visa allows her to meet with the UN Secretary General but makes it impossible for the speaker to take part in the conference.

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