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The delegation of Party A Just Russia took part in a meeting of the Socintern Council 15 декабря 2014 A regular meeting of the Council of the Socialist International opened at the Palace of Nations in Geneva (the United Nations Office at Geneva) on December 12. The A JUST RUSSIA Party delegation was represented by Alexander Romanovich (the delegation head), the Secretary of the Presidium of the Party Central Council on Foreign Affairs, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Roman Bernatsky, the Head of the Party International Department. The main topic of the meeting was "International peace and security, settlement of conflicts and counter-terrorism." The agenda also included such issues of importance as "Scale of migration and the situation with refugees", "The Socintern activity on creation of new democracies and strengthening of democratic governance". Shortly before, on December 11, the Socintern Committee on Ethics and the Committee for Finance and Administration held their meetings; another meeting was held by the members of the Presidium which approved the issues to be covered in the course of the Council work, including resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the situation in the Middle East. In addition, the Presidium expressed its support for Palestine in striving for its national identity. Luis Ayala, the Socintern Secretary General; Michael Mшller, the Head of the UN Office at Geneva; Antoniu Guteresh, ex-prime-minister of Portugal, the Socintern ex-Secretary-General and the current United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and Georgius Papandreu, the Socintern President gave welcoming speeches at the beginning of the meeting. In their speeches, the Socintern leaders and the invited UN representatives drew the main attention of the audience to the regional conflicts and their heavy consequences accompanied by numerous human losses, mass human rights violations and humanitarian catastrophes. They expressed their opinions regarding the causes of the international tension escalation, pointed at imperfection of the world order, dead response and ineffective measures taken by the international institutions for solution of the critical situations, and offered their own vision of normalization of the situation. In particular, Antoniu Guteresh touched upon the problem of refugees and displaced persons who suffered in the result of active battle operations of the terrorist groups of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Their number currently exceeds 3.2 mln. people. The UN official thinks all this speaks for the crisis of the international system and its inability to solve the accumulating problems. In his opinion, the way out is establishment of a multi-polar world, strengthening of international multilateral institutions, accumulation of humanitarian resources, steady arrangements for a joint response to terrorism, efficient answers to the challenges and threats of the XXIst century. As it appears to Antoniu Gutteresh, solution of the contemporary key problems lies in the political sphere and depends on the will of the definite political leaders who must give the right signals that would help to settle the conflict situations. Michael Mшller called for observation of the fundamental international principles, making a common contribution in creation of the stable world system, strengthening of multiculturalism and searching for adequate answers to the modern challenges. He was supported by Georgios Papandreu who reminded of the origins of the social-democratic movement, its basic values and goals, and indicated at a strong dependence of modern society on the processes of globalization and development of new technologies, weaknesses of the national government institutions and offered the Socintern members to submit a dignified alternative of development of the world processes on the basis of solidarity and democracy. The main topic of the meeting was developed in the speeches of Elio Di Rupo, ex-prime-minister, the Chairman of the Socialist Party of Belgium; Carmen Chacon Piqueras, the International Secretary of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party; Hermes Binner, President of the Socialist Party of Argentina and other speakers from Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Italy, Cyprus, Armenia, RSA, Angola, Uruguay, Venezuela etc. The speakers called for consolidation of the unity and solidarity within the framework of the world socialist movement, strengthening of the role of international institutions, higher concentration on the settlement of international conflicts and for more responsible and decisive actions. The delegations of the Iraqi, Iranian and Syrian Kurds occupied a special place at this international meeting. All of them were provided with an opportunity to give their own estimation of the events taking place in the Middle East region and offer the ways for the quickest resolution of the current situation. All the participants speaking at the Socintern Council meeting emphasized a significant role of the organization in development of a consolidated position and concrete proposals for settlement of the global and regional centers of tension in the world. At the end of the first day of the meeting, the problem of human rights violation in Venezuela and Belorussia was touched upon in connection with holding in detention of the political opponents of the acting governments of these countries. "On the sidelines" of the Socintern Council meeting, the A JUST RUSSIA Party delegation members had a meeting with the Secretary-General of the organization Luis Ayala, their colleagues from the Socialist-Democratic Party of Finland, the Socialist Party of France, the Hungarian Socialist Party, the Socialist Party of Portugal, the Democratic Party of Moldova, the Nationwide Social-Democratic Party of Kazakhstan, the Social-Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, the Fatah party (Palestine), Socitern Vise-President Rafael Michelini (Uruguay), the Secretary-General of the International Union of Socialist Youth Avin Inchir, the International Secretary of the Swedish Socialist-Democratic Youth League Darina Egoy and others. There was an especially warm communication with the International Secretary of Party UDEC (Republic of Cyprus) Nicos Hadzhistefanu, Socintern Vice-President Mario Nalbandyan (a representative of "Dashnaktsutyun", the Armenian revolutionary faction), the leader of the delegation of Party "Palestinian National Initiative" Mustafa Barguty, and the delegation of the Communist Party of China headed by the International Department deputy Head Sui Liupin. During a personal meeting with Luis Ayala, the head of the party delegation Alexander Romanovich handed him an official letter of Sergei Mironov, the A JUST RUSSIA Party Chairman where Mr. Mironov expressed his vision of the current international situation that resulted from the internal political crisis in Ukraine, and an invitation to visit Moscow in 2015 in connection with a big celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Vctory in the Great Patriotic War. Luis Ayala accepted the letters with gratitude and asked to give his best wishes to Sergei Mironov. On the same day, the A JUST RUSSIA Party delegation met with Mikhail Zima, Russian Consul-General in Geneva who informed the delegation members about the state of the relations between Russia and Switzerland, and the position of Switzerland regarding the topical issues of international policy. In his turn, Alexander Romanovich thanked the diplomat for the arrangement assistance and told him (in general) about participation of the party in the Socintern activities, and in particular, in its Council meeting.. The reports of the heads of the Committee on Ethics and the Committee for Finance and Administration as well as of the Committee on Latin America were heard during a closing part of the Socintern Council meeting on December 13. According to the Charter of the Socialist International, its Committee for Finance and Administration offered to bring to the Congress the issue of an exclusion from this organization of some parties with an observer status and consultative members from Poland, Serbia, Macedonia, Latvia, Georgia, Albania, Algeria, Australia, Burundi, Paraguay and some others who had not been paying obligatory membership fees for the last three years. After that, the participants of the meeting continued their work in compliance with the agenda. In his speech, Alexander Romanovich thanked the Socintern leadership for an opportunity to discuss the theme of international conflicts, including the issues of counter-terrorism and the Middle East settlement. He also expressed his hope for establishment of peace between Israel and Palestine in 2015. Regarding the situation in Ukraine, Alexander Romanovich unambiguously called the events in Ukraine a civil war but not a confrontation between Russia and Ukraine as it tried to describe a representative of the Social-Democratic Party of Ukraine (a Socintern consultative member) who spoke before. The A JUST PARTY representative called the leadership and the members of the Socialist International to provide an immediate assistance to Ukraine in search of consensus for establishment of peace and justice in the country. He also offered to call an international conference for an extensive discussion of the Ukrainian crisis. Moreover, to improve objectiveness and efficiency of work of the world socialist movement, the Russian parliamentarian expressed an opinion that it would be reasonable to create a monitoring group (by analogy with OSCE or PASE) within the Socintern framework for estimation of some or other events directly where they happen. This initiative found some support among the meeting participants. On the results of the Council meeting, the corresponding declarations and resolutions were adopted.
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