Russia seeks broader partnership with Turkey within international organisations

MOSCOW, April 14. /TASS/. Russia and Turkey want to promote inter-parliamentary cooperation within international organisations such as the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE PA), the speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament said on Tuesday. "Besides being interested in developing bilateral parliamentary ties, we believe that it is necessary to intensify our cooperation at different inter-parliamentary platforms such as PACE, OSCE PA, PABSEC [the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation] and others", Valentina Matviyenko, head of the Russian Federation Council, said at a meeting with Turkish Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Cicek. Matviyenko noted that the two countries had similar attitudes towards "the Council of Europe’s activities as a pan-European organisation". She recalled that the Strasbourg-based Council, the oldest Europe-wide political body tasked with upholding rights, democracy and rule of law across the continent, suspended Russia's voting rights over the Ukraine crisis, "which made it impossible to continue working". But "Russia remains a fully-fledged member of the Council of Europe and participates in all main institutions and their activities." We hope that PACE will not be so politically charged and will not yield to outside pressure," Matviyenko said, adding that she hoped the rights of the Russian delegation would be restored. The Russian speaker also thanked her Turkish counterparts for taking an independent and balanced stand on Russia and expressed hope that they would maintain such an attitude. She also highlighted the growing importance of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Vienna-based OSCE. "We believe that Turkey is playing an important role in the OSCE’s Parliamentary Assembly and we are interested in cooperation with counterparts from the Turkish parliament on issues on the agenda of the OSCE and its Parliamentary Assembly," Matviyenko said. Read more