“We held consultations
with my Ukrainian colleague,” 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)
said after the meeting.
‘The dialogue that we initiated should be even more active, because a lot
depends on politicians who could contribute to the settlement of the situation.’
The Chairman of the State Duma stressed the need to engage in the dialogue members of the European parliaments – representatives of the Normandy format.
According to him, “colleagues from Germany and France had already said that they were interested in resolving the situation in Ukraine. We believe it would be right to unite all active actors and to work on this issue more actively within the parliamentary dimension of the Normandy Format”. As he said, despite the pandemic, the parliamentarians are developing a work plan for the upcoming events for 2020–2021.
“We believe that we need to develop cooperation between the State Duma and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and it is great that the vital forces in Ukraine are doing everything for peace and economic recovery,” said Viacheslav Volodin. “By uniting the efforts of such forces, we will manage to address issues of concern of the citizens of Ukraine, and, of course, the citizens of our country. There is such a long border, our nations have centuries-old history. When we speak about our relations, we remember the culture, language, and faith and all other things that help to strengthen our relationship. Therefore, we need to seek common ground, and that is what we are doing. ”
”The Normandy Format could play a major positive role, especially within the parliamentary dimension. Therefore, we believe that the pause period due to the pandemic will be soon over and we will continue to work more actively and to involve our colleagues from the Parliaments of Germany and France in that work,” stressed Viacheslav Volodin.
In turn, Viktor Medvedchuk recalled that consultations with Russian parliamentarians were held in March 2020. “I met with the Chairman of the State Duma, leaders of the factions, chairmen of Committees, and we began to implement the parliamentary dimension of the Normandy format, as the the Inter-Factional Parliamentary Association “Inter-Parliamentary Dialogue for Peace: Ukraine-Russia-Germany-France” was created in the Ukrainian Parliament. We held meetings with parliamentarians from Germany, France, Russia, and we had big plans to implement the format at the meeting in Strasbourg,” he said.
“We expected the situation to get better in recent months, so we could continue the realization of this project, this ideology of the Normandy format,” said Viktor Medvedchuk.
He lamented that “the consultations of the Minsk Group, the Trilateral Contact Group, reached the deadlock. It is the fault of the Ukrainian delegation.” “The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on July 15, 2020, adopted a resolution and one of the points undermined the norms of the Minsk agreements, which had been approved by the resolution of the UN Security Council. And that is why the consultations of the Trilateral Contact Group have reached a total deadlock,” he said.
Viktor Medvedchuk expressed hope that today's meeting with the Chairman of the State Duma and further contacts between parliamentarians would intensify the negotiation process and help “the heads of the states – representatives of the Normandy Format group through the position of parliamentarians to unlock the stalemate on issues of a peaceful settlement in Donbass”.
