“French
President Emmanuel Macron in his speech at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, unfortunately, could not avoid what we are often facing here
in Strasbourg — the notorious double standards”, noted the Chairman of the Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutskiy
Slutsky
Leonid Eduardovich
.
“He used them when
speaking about his assessment of the exchange of detained persons between
Russia and Ukraine, we heard praises about the release of Oleg Sentsov, but he
did not say a word was about the political prisoner of the regime of Petro
Poroshenko, Kirill Vyshinsky. And in the assessment of the Moscow riots, which
are persistently interpreted in the West as crackdown on peaceful protests. And in matters of settlement of the conflict in the South-East of Ukraine”,
stressed the member of the State Duma.
“We once again
heard words about “the importance of the Minsk agreements for dialogue with
Russia.“ But, excuse me, Moscow takes in the Minsk process the same position
as Paris and Berlin — the position of a facilitator for settlement of the conflict in the Donbass. We are not a party to the conflict. And this is
extremely important to understand, especially in the context of negotiations on the organization of a new Normandy summit. It is equally important to understand the need for the implementation of the Minsk agreements by Kiev — implementation,
and not sabotage. At the same time, Macron’s conviction that there is no
alternative to Minsk Protocol signals, as they say, cautious optimism”, Leonid
Slutskiy said.
“At the same
time, the French leader devoted a substantial part of his speech to the return of the Russian
delegation to PACE. Mr. Macron fully supported the decision to reinstate
Russia's membership in the Council of Europe, though with reservations about
the absence of ”gestures of helpfulness.“ But in any case, this threw
cold water on parliamentarians with anti-Russian attitude”, noted the parliamentarian.
“However, here I would like to continue the line on the restoration of the construct. I believe
that it is the right time to abandon the policy of sanctions and restrictive
measures, at least in relation to parliamentarians. I wanted to ask the President
of the Fifth Republic about that. But, unfortunately, I could not do that
because of the time limit”, Leonid Slutskiy said.
