PACE observers not to watch State Duma elections - Naryshkin
MOSCOW. April 27 (Interfax) - State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said he is due to meet with Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) President Pedro Agramunt in May but that there will be no PACE observers at the September elections of the State Duma.
"I plan to meet with incumbent PACE President, Mr. Agramunt, on the sidelines of the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly session in St. Petersburg in May," Naryshkin told the newspaper Izvestia in an interview published on Wednesday.
The speaker said they did not mind dialogue, but one had to understand that "the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has made impossible the presence of its observers in the State Duma elections" by passing an inadmissible decision to limit the rights of the Russian delegation.
A broad range of observers from other international organizations, the OSCE, and national parliaments will be invited to those elections, Naryshkin said.
The State Duma speaker reminded the newspaper that Russian parliamentarians suspended contacts with PACE after the Assembly deprived the Russian delegation of voting rights. "However, we are not seceding from this organization so far," he said. "Despite the harsh rhetoric of the Assembly, we continue very close interaction with deputies from various countries," he said.
"We want common sense to finally triumph at PACE. Instead of suggesting new restrictions, a decision to remove barriers in inter-parliamentary dialogue should rapidly be made. If this understanding is reached, we will return to that platform," the politician said.
He hopes that "institutes of dialogue, which is our common value, will prevail and will not be destroyed [...] and traditions of European parliamentarianism will be stronger than any external provocations."
