The Russian delegation will not take part in the work of the parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), while maintaining sanctions against the Russian Parliament, said the head of the international Department of the state Duma Alexei Pushkov.

punishment against the Russian delegation to PACE were introduced in April last year because of the position of the Russian Federation on Ukraine and Crimea. The Russian deputies were deprived of the right to vote, the right to participate in meetings of statutory bodies and monitoring activities. In 2015 the penalties were extended. The head of the PACE Anne Brasseur said before, the issues of restoration of credentials of the delegation of the Russian Federation have the opportunity to be reviewed in January 2016.

"It seems to me that until the issue is not resolved with the abolition of sentences (vs) the Russian Federation, the issue of returning us to fully work in PACE to not be ", - said Pushkov in an open tribune in the state Duma on the theme " 20 years in the Council of Europe: lessons and prospects ".

the parliamentarian clarified that this position worked out by the leadership of the state Duma and endorsed by the Federation Council.

"in my opinion, This is the only correct position, because to go back there in order to be subjected to new sanctions restrictions, we can't afford. This is not the position of Russia, does not correspond to the vision of the role of our delegation, which we have. This does not correspond to the status of one of the major contributors of the Council of Europe ", - noted the Deputy.

According to Pushkov, there's no point in discussing the issue of withdrawal from the Council of Europe.

"We are not talking about outlet, we are not Talking about the fact that we are not going to work with the Cabinet of Ministers or the European court of human rights. The story is about a very specific situation - the conflict between our delegation and those who support us (on one side), and these elected officials are, and aggressive anti-Russian majority in PACE (from the other side), which chose the geopolitics instead of the protection of democracy and human rights. That is the essence of the problem, and then I think we owe our position to withstand, " - said the MP.

sections: Politics