The delegation of the parliamentary friendship group “Ireland-Russia” intends to visit Russia in early February, the visit was prepared for more than a year, State Duma Deputy Anton Morozov (LDPR) told RIA Novosti.
The visit of the Irish parliamentarians will be discussed on Wednesday at a meeting of the Council of the State Duma. According to the agenda of the meeting, published in the Duma database, the visit of the Irish delegation is scheduled for February 11-13, which, presumably, will consist of seven people.
According to Morozov, the question of exchange of visits has been studied for over a year.
“This is a newly created group, last year we created it, started to establish contacts with the help of the Irish embassy in Moscow and the Russian embassy in Dublin and agreed with the Irish colleagues on the start of inter-parliamentary dialogue and exchange of visits. The first visit of the Irish delegation is planned in February, a return visit our friendship group is scheduled for June, “said Morozov, who is the coordinator of the parliamentary group for relations with the Irish parliament.
According to him, during the meeting, the current agenda of bilateral relations will be discussed. Answering the question of whether the topic of suspicion of Whelan’s espionage in Russia would be raised at the talks, Morozov said that this issue does not fall within the competence of parliamentarians.
“This question is not within our competence, I hope that such things will not cloud our cooperation, because we have points of contact. I think we will have something to talk about besides this,” said the State Duma deputy.
Earlier, the FSB reported that it had detained a US citizen Paul Whelan in a spying rally in Moscow, and a criminal case was opened. As the representative of the State Department told RIA Novosti, the United States confirms that the Russian Foreign Ministry has officially notified them of the detention of an American citizen in Moscow. He declined to provide additional details, citing privacy concerns. According to Brother Whelan, the detainee is a former marine and went to Moscow for a wedding.