Opening
the meeting, Viacheslav Volodin
Vyacheslav Victorovich
The Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the eighth convocation. Elected in single mandate constituency № 163 (Saratov constituency - Saratov Oblast)
reminded that Venezuela is a Russian strategic
partner. “I would like to convey words of support and good luck to President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro and the people of Venezuela,” he said.
According to the Chairman of the State Duma, all political factions of the State Duma are unanimous in the opinion that the intervention in the sovereign affairs of states is unacceptable.
“The actions of the United States violate all the basic international rules, international law, and for our part, we would like to emphasize once again that this is unacceptable. Such a position should be condemned by other parliaments,” said Viacheslav Volodin.
He told Delcy Rodríguez that Russia intends to appeal to parliaments of other countries so that they could see an objective picture of what was happening in Venezuela and condemn the actions of the United States.
“For our part, we would like the national parliaments of countries that are members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) to declare their position. In the near future, in April, an IPU meeting will be held in Qatar, and we will try to raise this issue in order to discuss this with our colleagues and give an assessment,” he noted.
The Chairman of the State Duma reminded that the IPU meeting will be held in Doha on 8–11 April.
The Vice-President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in her turn, thanked
Russia and President Vladimir Putin for the support provided to Venezuela. Delcy
Rodríguez stressed that the actions of the United States, which
”consistently pursue an aggressive policy towards our country,“
violate the UN Charter and all norms and principles of international law.
Delcy Rodríguez said that the US satellite countries are helping the US in its aggressive policy towards Venezuela. According to the Executive Vice President of the Republic, their goal is to “steal the country's resources.” She also told the Russian parliamentarians that using a “farce” with a delivery of the so-called humanitarian aid to Venezuela, an attempt to organize mass riots there was made. “The sent things to raise upheavals in Venezuela,” said Delcy Rodríguez.
“We believe that Russia with President Vladimir Putin will ensure the future of humanity and will be able to protect it from all troubles. And Venezuela, for its part, will be an active participant of this new geopolitics […]. We are very appreciative and grateful to Russia for its commitment to the rule of law and world peace,” said the Venezuelan politician.
During the meeting, the parties agreed on the importance of strengthening and developing bilateral relations. According to Delcy Rodríguez, there is potential for such development in a wide variety of spheres, from economics and finance to energy, scientific, military and technical cooperation.
“It’s time for us to turn from strategic partners into strategic brothers, to reach a new, higher level of relations,” said the Executive Vice-President of Venezuela.
In addition, she stated that Russia and Venezuela are creating an informal group within the UN, “which will work to protect the UN Charter and the principles of international law.” “We reached an agreement with 50 countries and the list of countries willing to participate is expanding,” she said.
Viacheslav Volodin invited President of the National Constituent Assembly of Venezuela Diosdado Cabello and the Venezuelan delegation to take part in the International Forum “Development of Parliamentarism”, which will be held in Moscow in July 2019.
The meeting was attended by representatives of all political factions of the State
Duma: First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Ivan Melnikov
Ivan Ivanovich
(CPRF), Deputy
Chairwoman of the State Duma Olga Timofeeva
Olga Victorovna
(United Russia), Chairman of the Committee
on International Affairs Leonid Slutskiy
Leonid Eduardovich
(LDPR) and Chairman of the Committee on Financial Market Anatolii Aksakov
Anatoly Gennadievich
(”Just Russia“).
