Tbilisi. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE) begins its spring session, which will last till April 27.
German President Joachim Gauck, Georgian
Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta and
Andorran Head of Government Antoni Marti are among a number of leading figures
to address the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) during
its spring plenary session.
According to the PACE, the session agenda
includes: debates on post-monitoring dialogue with Turkey, violence against
religious communities, fighting child sex tourism, balancing benefits and risks
of nanotechnologies etc.
As PACE reported earlier, as part of the
April session, the Russian and Georgian delegations would meet each other in
full composition for the first time after the August conflict in 2008. Heads of
the RF and Georgian delegations met without mediators at the PACE winter
session. It was decided then to hold the full- format meeting between the
delegations of the two countries.
Aleksey Pushkov, the Head of the RF State
Duma International Affairs Committee, told journalists earlier, the Russian
delegation was going to raise before Premier Ivanishvili the issue of changing
the Georgian leadership's foreign policy with regard to Russia - RIA Novosti
reports.
"We are going to put questions on how
he is going to change Georgia's foreign policy, particularly, with regard to
Russia, since all official statements made by the Georgian leadership so far
continue in a vein of the foreign policy, pursued by Saakashvili. We would like
to understand what changes are going to be made that will give grounds to hope
for improvement of the relations with Georgia," he stated.
Bidzina Ivanishvili is expected to deliver
a 15-minute speech at PACE on April 23. In his speech, Ivanishvili will focus
on the ongoing reforms in the country," Georgian Prime Minister's
spokesperson office reported earlier.
Tbilisi broke off diplomatic relations
with Russia following Moscow's unilateral recognition of Georgian breakaway
regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region (so-called South Ossetia), in August
2008. Georgia's new leadership, which came to power as a result of October 1,
2012, parliamentary elections in Georgia, declared normalization of ties with
Russia as its key foreign policy priority.