By Vestnik Kavkaza
The Day of Russian Parliamentarism is celebrated on the 27th of April. On April 27th 1906 the first session of the State Duma was held in St. Petersburg. The holiday has been marked since 2012. Russia has been reaching a real, not declarative parliament for a long time. It took time to adapt the general principles of parliamentarism, the mechanisms of its activity to the economic, social and political reality of our Russia, according to the speaker of the upper chamber of the parliament, Valentina Matviyenko. According to her, today the Russian parliament meets world standards completely – according to its role in the political system of the country, the principles of its organization and activity, and social respect.
Vestnik Kavkaza asked Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs, to comment on the inter-parliamentary cooperation with the countries of the South Caucasus.
“We have very close relations with Armenia. You know that we are allies. Armenia is a member of the CSTO and the EAEU. So, we can speak only about stable, positive cooperation and about regular exchange visits of the heads of the State Duma, the Federal Assembly and the relevant heads in Armenia,” Pushkov says.
“We have stable relations of strategic partnership with Azerbaijan. Last year we visited Baku in the context of the visit of our delegation, headed by Sergey Naryshkin, to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. Our delegation headed by Sergey Naryshkin met with the governing body of the country and leaders of the Parliament of Azerbaijan.
At the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe we had close and friendly cooperation with the delegation of Azerbaijan. As you know, we decided not to participate in the activities of PACE till the end of the year as a protest against sanctions in regard to Russia. But cooperation both with the delegation of Azerbaijan and the delegation of Armenia is one of the main features of our previous activity in PACE,” the MP said.
As for Georgia, according to Pushkov, the situation is quite different: “Georgia, I think that Georgia still cannot decide what it wants from Russia. Russia's confession of the wrong actions in relation to South Ossetia and Abkhazia? I think it is impossible to expect. But on the other hand, as I understand it, Georgia would like to resume trade and economic relations. And I've received information about their interest in resuming a parliamentary dialogue. I received this information before the Ukrainian crisis. In the context of PACE we arranged a meeting between the representatives of the Georgian and Russian delegations in order to establish an inter-parliamentary dialogue. But, after the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, the Georgian delegation in PACE took a distinct anti-Russian position. And after that, all these attempts failed. But we gave our Georgian colleagues a hint that we are ready to consider some kinds of collaboration, if all these attempts are not based on the condemnation of Russia and also the statement that Russia's policy is unacceptable for Georgia.”
