Russian senators interested in developing ties with LatAm parliament — top Russian senator

MOSCOW, April 20. /TASS/. The Federation Council is interested in developing ties with the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino), Russia's upper house speaker Valentina Matviyenko told Chairman of Parlatino Rolando Miguel Gonzalez Patricio. "We know that you personally, Mr. Gonzalez, are committed to developing interparliamentary relations with Russia. I hope that the intensity of our interparliamentary cooperation will only increase further. We are interested in this because we believe that there is no alternative to interparliamentary dialogue, and we, the parliamentarians, have a special responsibility to maintain peace, stability, and cooperation. We are ready for this. I hope that the leadership of Parlatino will follow the same course," she said. The interaction between the Federation Council and Parlatino "has a good history," Matviyenko said. "I remember how 13 years ago I signed a cooperation agreement between the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and the Latin American Parliament together with my colleague, then State Duma Chairman [Sergey] Naryshkin." Matviyenko also noted that after a break caused by the position of the previous leadership of Parlatino, the dialogue is being restored. "It [the interaction] was interrupted, through no fault of ours, because of the position of the previous leadership of Parlatino. And we are very glad that after such a break we are resuming our dialogue," she added.