Russian Duma speaker proposes to hold parliamentary meeting ahead of ASEAN summit

MOSCOW, October 14. /TASS/. Speaker of the Russian State Duma lower house of parliament Sergey Naryshkin has suggested that a parliamentary meeting should be convened ahead of the summit of Russia and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) scheduled for the year 2016. "We are confident that a meeting of our leader with ASEAN leaders - timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of a dialogue partnership between Russia and ASEAN and due to be marked in May 2016 - will be a significant milestone on the way of Russia-ASEAN cooperation," Naryshkin said at a meeting with Speaker of Indonesia’s Regional Representative Council [one of two houses of parliament] Irman Gusman on Wednesday. Naryshkin expressed his gratitude to Indonesia for support of the Russian initiative to hold that summit in Russia. "We are very hopeful that Indonesia’s President [Joko] Widodo will take part in the meeting," he said suggesting "Let us think about a possibility to hold a parliamentary event related to the summit." Read more