PACE President on Moscow Visit

The Russian authorities deem a resolution of Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE) on the consequences of the August war as biased against Russia and “as a result of this position, very few demands of the Assembly have been met,” Lluís Maria de Puig, PACE President said after visiting Moscow on January 18-19.

In a statement released on January 21, the PACE President said he welcomed “the clearly expressed intention of the Russian authorities to engage in a constructive and open dialogue with the Assembly” to address issues related with the August war.

He also said that the Russian parliamentarians had expressed their readiness to engage in a dialogue with their Georgian counterparts under the PACE aegis.

“These are positive elements that will certainly be discussed during the debate at the forthcoming part-session of the Assembly in Strasbourg,” de Puig said.

During the meeting with the PACE delegation, the Russian senior lawmakers, expressed “deep concern” that tension along the administrative borders of the breakaway regions “were increasing, and that future hostilities were not to be excluded,” according to the statement.

The report of the PACE Monitoring Committee on the implementation of PACE’s resolution on the consequences of the August war, as well as the report of the PACE Committee on Migration Refugees and Population on the humanitarian consequences of the war will be debated at the PACE winter session on January 28.

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