Duma to continue working with Western partners despite tensions - Naryshkin
YALTA. Aug 14 (Interfax) - The State Duma will continue work with Western partners despite the current political situations, lower house chairman Sergei Naryshkin said at a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and State Duma faction members in Yalta on Thursday.
"We must certainly maintain dialogue with our Western partners, Western parliamentarians, given that there are various politicians in Europe, both within ruling parties and in the opposition. So we will continue maintaining dialogue with counterparts, continue telling them the truth with facts and concrete legal arguments," he said.
"I am certain that even the most enraged critics and ill-wishers will have to admit one day that this move was both fair and based on international law," Naryshkin said.
He added that the task of reuniting with Crimea has united all members of the State Duma.
"Currently, our principal objective is create a legal framework for further socio-economic development of Crimea. Of course, one has to bear in mind that not only Crimea but whole sectors of Russian economy are finding themselves in new conditions, I mean the foreign sanctions. And this is why we, of course, need a systemic approach to devising and implementing the anti-sanctions policy in close and efficient cooperation with the Russian government," the speaker said.
In March the State Duma set up a working group which analyzes statutory acts and legislative procedures passed in Ukraine, Naryshkin recalled.
"Experts reckon that the Ukrainian legal system is degrading. Those amendments that were proposed by President Poroshenko to Verkhovna Rada, the constitutional amendments, they unfortunately do not address the main and critical issues which provoked the tragic standoff in southeast Ukraine," Naryshkin said.
These issues are first and foremost the federalization and the status of the Russian language, he said. "Of course, it is Ukraine's internal business, on the hand; but on the other, a whole catalogue of unlawful and illegitimate decisions and actions by the Kyiv authorities has led to the largest European country currently experiencing the deepest crisis, chaos and, essentially, a civil war," he said,
The Russian speaker also expressed his regret over inadequate Western reactions to this situation.
