Moscow - State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin has agreed to represent Russia in an international group on Ukraine set up at the 23rd session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE PA) in Baku, the Izvestiya newspaper wrote on Friday, July 11.
“Ilkka Kanerva (the head of the OSCE PA) has suggested that I join the group on resolving the political crisis in Ukraine and lead its Russian delegation, which will not be large because the group should be compact. I have agreed,” Naryshkin told the paper.
He said the chief result of this work will be analysis of the situation caused by the political crisis in Ukraine and working out recommendations on how to exit it.
The Izvestiya recalled that the group was set up on Naryshkin’s initiative at the Assembly’s 23rd session in Baku and backed the majority of European countries, as well as Ukraine. Kanerva has praised the role of the group.
“If the group works in the suggested format, it will lend status not only to it but the OSCE PA proper. It is obvious that if it is formed at the level of parliamentary chairmen, it will have a weight completely different from, say, that of the working group of rank-and-file delegation members or even delegation leaders,” the head of the State Duma International Affairs Committee, Alexei Pushkov, told the newspaper.
Nevertheless, for the idea to materialize, it will require the approval of parliamentary speakers from eleven other countries, including Ukraine. However, until now Verkhovna Rada leader Oleksandr Turchynov has not shown openness to dialogue with Russia and is not been much counted upon. For this reason, there could be change in the working format, State Duma sources told Izvestiya.
The newspaper also noted that the first meeting of the OSCE PA group might not be held before September when European and Russian parliamentarians return from their summer vacations.
