The Assembly events took place in the Tauride Palace, St Petersburg.
Russian senators held a number of meetings with foreign parliamentarians on the sidelines of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly spring session.
Federation Council Speaker and Chair of the IPA CIS Council Valentina Matvienko met with Chair of the Majlisi Milli of the Majlisi Oli of the Republic of Tajikistan Rustami Emomali. This was his first foreign visit after his re-election as head of the upper house of parliament.
The Federation Council Speaker extended her congratulations to Rustami Emomali on his appointment. The parties discussed interparliamentary cooperation and upcoming contacts this year, including at international platforms.
Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev had a conversation with Boris Michel, Head of the Regional Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for the Russian Federation and Belarus.
The Deputy Speaker congratulated the ICRC Regional Delegation on gaining observer status with the CIS IPA, expressing the hope that this would contribute to the further development of relations between the Assembly and the ICRC.
Boris Michel briefed on the humanitarian aspects of the ICRC delegation's activities in the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics, as well as the Kursk and Belgorod regions.
Konstantin Kosachev thanked the ICRC Regional Delegation for cooperation within the agenda of the Inter-Parliamentary Union Working Group on Ukraine.
Chair of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs Grigory Karasin and Deputy Chairperson of PARLATINO, Paraguayan MP Carlos Nunez Salinas exchanged views on prospects for cooperation. “Parliamentary efforts help foster an environment conducive to adopting concrete positive decisions,” the senator underscored, expressing confidence that the visit of the Latin American delegation to St Petersburg would serve to intensify interparliamentary contacts.
During the conversation Grigory Karasin emphasised the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory this year, with Latin American countries also contributing to it, and stressed the importance of the Address to the Foreign Parliaments and Peoples of the World on the Inadmissibility of Distorting the History of the Second World War and Rehabilitating Nazism, which was adopted by the Federation Council the day before. The Senator handed the Address to the PARLATINO delegation.
Carlos Nunez Salinas spoke in favour of expanding cooperation with Russian lawmakers, including at international platforms.
The officials agreed to develop parliamentary contacts in the near future between Russia and PARLATINO, as well as with Paraguay and other Latin American countries.