The delegations of Ukraine, Poland and Denmark to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) have declared that the visit of a delegation led by PACE President Pedro Agramunt to Syria was not sanctioned by the Assembly, and expressed their regret that this visit could harm the credibility of the organization.
“We, the undersigned, Members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, express our grave concern over the media reports on the recent visit to Syria by a delegation allegedly “headed by the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Spanish senator Mr. Pedro Agramunt” and a number of other European Members of Parliament, in the company of leading Members of the State Duma of the Russian Federation… We totally disassociate ourselves from this above-mentioned visit to Syria and call upon the Parliamentary Assembly to publicly and unequivocally dissociate itself too and make clear under no uncertain terms that this visit was not sanctioned by the Parliamentary Assembly,” reads a statement by the delegations of Ukraine, Poland and Denmark, whose text was posted by Head of the Ukrainian Delegation to the PACE Vladimir Ariev of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc on his Facebook page.
The signatories recalled PACE resolutions on the situation in Syria and Aleppo, which condemned the widespread, systematic and gross human rights violations, amounting to crimes against humanity, committed by Syrian military and security forces.
“We also regret any attempts to use this visit as a message of support to the Syrian dictatorship which we consider responsible for war crimes. We strongly believe that against the background of the allegations of corruption within the Parliamentary Assembly, the visit organized by the Russian parliamentarians, under unclear financial terms and presented under the auspices of PACE, could further damage the authority of the Assembly and undermine the trust of European citizens in this pan-European inter-parliamentary forum,” the statement reads.
The statement was signed by Volodymyr Ariev on behalf of the Ukrainian Delegation, Michael Aastrup Jensen on behalf of the Delegation of Denmark, and Wlodzimierz Bernacki on behalf of the Delegation of Poland.
Earlier, the Ukrainian Delegation to PACE said they wanted to know who financed the trip of Agramunt to Syria at the invitation of Russian lawmakers.
