German Lawmaker Calls PACE Decisions on Ukraine, Russia One-Sided

MOSCOW (Sputnik), Daria Chernyshova — The decisions by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to deprive the Russian delegation of its voting rights and to accuse Moscow of the Ukrainian crisis escalation, are one-sided, a German lawmaker from Die Linke party told Sputnik on Tuesday.

"The PACE has, according to my point of view, made wrong and one-sided decisions on the situation in Ukraine and towards Russia," Andrej Hunko from the leftist Die Linke party told Sputnik.

Last week, Russia suspended its membership of PACE until the end of 2015 following the PACE resolution adoption that deprived the Russian delegation of its voting rights until April.

In a separate resolution on Ukraine, PACE accused Russia of involvement in the emergence and worsening of the situation in the country's southeast and called on Russia to coordinate its humanitarian assistance to the region with Kiev.

The Assembly will return to the issue of Russia's credentials in April.

"I don't know what will be the decision in April, but there is a strong minority against prolonging the sanctions on the Russian delegation. It depends on several factors, including the Russian side, that this minority can turn into majority," Hunko underlined.

He noted that dialogue between Russia and other European states is still possible and "even more important than ever." Moreover, "there are strong interests to destroy this dialogue. We should do the utmost, not to play the game of these interests."

This is the second time over the past year that PACE has imposed sanctions against the Russian delegation. In April 2014, following Crimea's reunification with Russia and the start of a military conflict in southeastern Ukraine, PACE approved a resolution, banning Moscow's delegation from voting and participating in the work of the assembly's governing bodies until the end of the year.

Moscow has denied any involvement in the Ukrainian conflict, walking out of the spring session and skipping the summer session in protest.

The April debate in PACE on the issue of Russia's credentials will depend on progress made on three main issues, including the release of Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko who is in pre-trial detention over the alleged killing of two Russian journalists, sending a team from the PACE monitoring Committee to prepare a report on human rights violations, and forming a group of Russian, Ukrainian and European parliamentarians to ease the crisis in southeastern Ukraine.