Russia will not play along wish to exclude it from the parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), and has no plans to leave the organization, said in an interview Last news the head of the Russian delegation to PACE, the head of the state Duma on international Affairs Alexei Pushkov.

According to the Deputy, the PACE has a number of countries that have raised the question of excluding Russia from the inter-parliamentary body, for example, the United Kingdom and the Baltic countries, however, support their proposal has not used: " at the last session have voted only 50 deputies, and 120 voted against.

" for this reason, to play into the hands of our enemies, those who wished to exclude Russia from the parliamentary Assembly, we do not wish for this reason, such a step we make will not, " said Pushkov.

PACE is the oldest in the EU body of inter-parliamentary cooperation was established at the creation of the Council of Europe in 1949, Russia joined the Council of Europe in 1996. In April PACE because of the situation around Ukraine and Crimea deprived the Russian delegation's voting rights, rights of participation in their statutory bodies and opportunity to work in a group of election observers is for this reason that the delegation of the Russian Federation took a decision not to participate in the June session of PACE.

sections: Politics