PACE concerned by the visit of Agramunt in Syria: statement

The delegation of Ukraine, Denmark and Poland in the parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe initiated a statement in connection with the recent visit of the President of PACE Pedro Agramunt in Syria, organized by the aggressor state of Russia. About this Facebook said the head of the Ukrainian delegation, MP from the bloc of Petro Poroshenko Volodymyr Ariev.

He later addedthat the statement was joined by the delegation of Lithuania.

The signatories expressed deep concern over media reports about the recent visit to Syria by the delegation alleged “headed by the PACE President, a Spanish Senator, Mr Pedro Agramunt” and several other European parliamentarians, in the company of influential persons of illegitimate state Duma of the Russian Federation.

The head of delegation recalled that, since 2012, PACE adopted a number of resolutions and recommendations, strongly condemning “the gross and systematic violation of human rights, the increasing number of crimes against humanity committed by Syrian military and the forces of national security”. Furthermore, the Assembly, equally condemned the attacks 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 many schools and hospitals have suffered from the Russian and Syrian aerial bombardment in which many people, including children, were killed”, underline the signatories.

“We completely dissociate ourselves from the aforementioned visit to Syria, and urge PACE 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,” – said in a statement.

See also: PACE Members demand from Agramunt explanation about his visit to Syria

“We are firmly convinced that, against the backdrop of allegations of corruption in the parliamentary Assembly visit by the Russian Parliament in unclear from a financial point of view and circumstances 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,” the signatories noted.

21 March 2017 it was reportedthat in Syria there has arrived the delegation of PACE members from Spain, Italy, Czech Republic and Russia, headed by Pedro Agramunt.

First Vice-speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Iryna Gerashchenko saidthat the Ukrainian delegation should send a letter to PACE, demanding clarification on the status of the visit.

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