PACE session to examine Kaliningrad issue this fall

The fall-time session of PACE (Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe) is to examine the Kaliningrad issue during its fall-time session. This decision was made by PACE's bureau here today.

Topical debates dealing with the problem of Kaliningrad region were held within the current session's framework. (Kaliningrad region, which is a Russian enclave on the Baltic coast, might become isolated as a result of the European Union's expansion -- Ed.) Dmitry Rogozin, who chairs the Russian State Duma's foreign-affairs committee, addressed the current PACE session in Strasbourg, emphasizing the fact that the introduction of visas for Russian citizens travelling between Kaliningrad region and mainland Russia (and vice versa) would rudely violate basic acts and conventions in the field of human rights and freedoms. (The State Duma is the Russian Parliament's lower house -- Ed.) According to Rogozin, the EU's reluctance to tackle the problem of Kaliningrad through negotiations highlights the striving of some countries, members of the Council of Europe, to infringe upon Russia's sovereignty, to cut off Kaliningrad region from Russia and to establish a precedent of depriving Russian citizens of the right to free movement, which is the main human-rights aspect.