Russia Mulls Optimistic Scenario of Cooperation with PACE

MOSCOW, January 19 (Sputnik) — Moscow believes common sense will prevail in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), hopes that Russia's membership will be reinstated, and that the Russian delegation's work with PACE will be productive, Russia's State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said Monday.

In spring 2014, PACE suspended the Russian delegation's voting rights in response to Russia's reunification with Crimea.

"The most optimistic outcome at PACE is being considered now, and I believe in the common sense of the parliamentarians, European parliamentarians, who work in the framework of the Parliamentary Assembly… In the event a different opinion prevails, speaking for myself, I doubt the practicability, at least over the next year, of our continued work in the Parliamentary Assembly," Naryshkin told reporters.

Naryshkin added that Russia will prove it is right in the event that PACE considers a draft resolution to suspend Russia's voting rights further.

On Monday, the Russian Izvestia newspaper reported that the Netherlands had prepared a draft resolution to bar Russia from voting in PACE for another year.

"Every delegation has a right to prepare a resolution about the suspension of rights, or the partial suspension of rights of any other delegation. These types of draft resolutions are discussed. If such a draft resolution is presented during the Parliamentary Assembly session, it will be discussed. We will prove that we are in the right," Naryshkin said.

Following the suspension of the country's delegation rights in PACE, Russia's delegation walked out of the Assembly's spring 2014 session. Later in 2014, Moscow officially informed PACE of its decision to halt bilateral cooperation and withdraw from the summer and the autumn sessions of the assembly.