MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russia considers practices of restricting contacts between lawmakers of different countries unacceptable, Speaker of the Russian lower house of parliament Sergei Naryshkin said Monday.
"We believe the practice of limiting contacts between parliamentarians from different countries, limits to the parliamentarians’ possibility to freely express their point of view unacceptable," Naryshkin told Finnish lawmakers.
Limited inter-parliamentary contacts contradict the principles and values of democracy and parliamentarism, the State Duma speaker stressed at a session attended by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) President Ilkka Kanerva.
"We very much hope that the forthcoming OSCE Parliamentary Assembly session in Tbilisi [Georgia, scheduled for July 1-5] will accept the Russian resolution on the inadmissibility of any sanctions against parliamentarians," he added.
On July 1, 2015, Finland refused to give travel visas for several Russian parliamentarians, who were invited to take part in a session of the OSCE PA. Speaker of the Russian parliament's lower chamber Sergei Naryshkin, blacklisted by the European Union over accusations of involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, was among those whose visa was denied. In protest, the Russian delegation refused to participate in the parliamentary session.
