The delegation of Ukraine, Denmark and Poland in the parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe asking the Assembly to publicly inform the public that the visit of the President of PACE Pedro Agramunt in Syria was not sanctioned by PACE. A statement released by the Chairman of the permanent delegation of the Verkhovna Rada to PACE Vladimir Aryev in Facebook.
“We, the undersigned, members of the parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Express our deep concern about media reports on a recent visit to Syria by the delegation alleged “headed by the President of the parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, a Spanish Senator, Mr Pedro Agramunt” and several other members of the European Parliament, in the company of influential persons of the State Duma of the Russian Federation”, – said in a statement.
Delegations are reminded that the Assembly equally condemns the attack on civilians and other crimes committed in Aleppo, including the tragic situation of children who have not received humanitarian assistance of the UN, the situation in which a lot of schools and hospitals affected by the Russian and Syrian aerial bombardment in which many, including children, were killed.
“We completely dissociate ourselves from the aforementioned visit to Syria and urge the Parliamentary Assembly to publicly and unambiguously notify the public that this visit was not sanctioned by the parliamentary Assembly. We also regret that attempts to use the visit as a message of support to the Syrian dictatorship, which we consider responsible for war crimes. We firmly believe that against the background of allegations of corruption in the parliamentary Assembly, the visit by the Russian parliamentarians, under mysterious from a financial point of view, circumstances, and presented under the auspices of PACE, could further hurt the credibility of the Assembly and undermine the confidence of European citizens to this pan-European inter-parliamentary forum”, – said in a statement.
Earlier it was reported that Damascus was visited by the big delegation of representatives of the PACE, headed by the President of the organization, Pedro Agramunt, and the company was the Russian deputies of the state Duma of the Russian Federation.
