Duma chief says cooperation with Ukrainian parliament can be resumed after its members are replaced
The Russian and Ukrainian parliaments can resume cooperation after radical nationalists in the Verkhovna Rada are replaced by representatives of all Ukrainian political forces, State Duma speaker Sergey Naryshkin has said.
“Cooperation with Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada [parliament] will definitely be resumed, but I don’t think that it can happen when its current members are still in their places. This Rada was elected under drum rolls and howling, with mass hopping and radical nationalist rhetoric,” Naryshkin told RIA Novosti.
READ MORE: Duma won’t turn its back on new Ukrainian parliament - lawmaker
The Russian politician hinted at the events of 2014 when a group of radical protesters led by Ukrainian nationalists ousted the legally elected president of the country and installed the current pro-Western regime that spoiled the relations with Russia and started a de-facto civil war with pro-Russian regions in the southeast of the country.
Naryshkin also noted that the present Ukrainian parliament failed to represent all political factions and movements that existed in this country.
“However, we still maintain contact with a number of deputies of the Supreme Rada and I think that the number of such people will increase in the future. I am confident that sooner or later we will start cooperating with a different Rada – we will hold a parliamentary dialogue worthy of two major European states and two brotherly peoples – Ukrainians and Russians.”
In 2015, Naryshkin told reporters at an international press conference that in his view the United States bore a considerable share of the blame for driving the situation in Ukraine towards the current crisis. He added that instead of promoting a peaceful and mutually acceptable resolution of the situation, Washington and its allies were imposing sanctions against Russia “in hope to cover up their own guilt for the events.”
“The United States’ guilt for those developments is considerable and obvious to the entire world,” the Duma chief emphasized.
READ MORE: Ukrainian offensive in Donbass makes sanctions against Russia ‘immoral’ – Duma chief
