Russian parliamentary speaker to meet OSCE assembly president in Moscow

The speaker of Russia’s parliament Sergey Naryshkin on Friday will meet the president of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) parliamentary assembly to discuss prospects for normalisation of relations between Russia and the OSCE group.

Alexey Pushkov, head of the International Affairs Committee at the Russian parliament’s lower chamber, told TASS that the meeting in Moscow was initiated by OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Ilkka Kanerva. The move follows Finland’s decision to bar some Russian officials, including the speaker of parliament’s State Duma lower house Sergey Naryshkin, from attending a meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly on July 5-9 in Helsinki.

“He (Kanerva) comes to discuss the scandalous situation when the Finnish authorities refused to grant entry to Finland to part of the Russian delegation (led by State Duma Speaker Naryshkin),” Pushkov said, suggesting that Kanerva “wouldn’t want this episode to leave a negative imprint on relations between the OSCE PA and Russia”.