Non-conflict chairman

The head of PACE improved the tone of discussions on Russia

Today, the two-day visit to Moscow of the Chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, will end with meetings with representatives of political parties and non-governmental organizations of Russia. At meetings with the leadership of both chambers of the Federal Assembly and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the 42-year-old guest constantly emphasized that Russia is the largest country in the Council of Europe, capable of contributing to the further formation of European values, the reform of PACE, and it is moving in this matter “in the right direction.”

On January 25 this year, Russian delegates unanimously voted for Çavuşoğlu, the first Turk to head PACE in its entire 61-year history, who has established himself as “an honest and competent politician who has always demonstrated a balanced approach to problems, including those related to Russia.” “From the moment you took this post, PACE has been freed from artificial and imposed politicization,” said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who was the first to meet yesterday with the guest who came to Moscow for the first time in his new capacity. “We appreciate your line of establishing a constructive, non-conflict dialogue, so that there are no more old dividing lines in Europe and no new ones are created.”

Çavuşoğlu assured his interlocutors that his policy is to “avoid double standards”: “All members of the Council of Europe should feel equal.” State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov confirmed that recently acute problems for Russia have been discussed in PACE more constructively. He promised support for monitoring the situation in Russia, which the guest informed him about: PACE experts will arrive in July to prepare a report “on a wide range of issues.” Mr. Gryzlov added that “new topics for monitoring are emerging” and “therefore, we propose to develop in the near future a “road map” that will allow us to exit the monitoring regime.”

Speaker of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov said that with the election of Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu as head of PACE, the tone of discussions on issues related to Russia has changed for the better. As an example, Mr. Mironov cited a constructive discussion of a “balanced report” on the North Caucasus at the PACE session in mid-June. In the conversation with Sergei Lavrov, they discussed the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, taking into account the fact that, according to the guest, “Russia’s position on this issue is largely decisive.”

A special topic of yesterday's negotiations was the problem of distortion of historical truth for the sake of political considerations. Sergei Mironov, reminding the guest that on May 17 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), following the Latvian court, recognized the 88-year-old former Soviet partisan Vasily Kononov as a war criminal, called on PACE to evaluate this decision: “This is a dangerous precedent, contradicting not only the UN Charter, but also the results of the Nuremberg process.” Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu responded that he personally could not react to the ECHR verdict, but took note of Russian concerns: “I agree that history should be left to historians and not used as a political element in relations between countries.”

Alexander SAMOKHOTKIN