PLACE DU PETIT-SACONNEX
1211 GENEVA 19 SWITZERLAND
| INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION PLACE DU PETIT-SACONNEX 1211 GENEVA 19 SWITZERLAND |
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Press release of the Inter-Parliamentary Union
In view of the particularly worrying human rights situation and current instability in Afghanistan, "threats to the area bordering the territories of the Commonwealth of Independent States are not to be excluded", said Mr Guennady Seleznev today at a press conference he held in the Kremlin in the context of the 100th Inter-Parliamentary Conference of which he was elected President yesterday. Mr Seleznev referred to the human rights situation in Afghanistan to illustrate "the close involvement of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) with the issue of human rights". The President of the Conference was alluding to the meeting of the IInd Committee of the Inter-Parliamentary Conference (on parliamentary, juridical and human rights questions) which meets today and on Thursday 10 September to discuss "Strong action by national parliaments in the year of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to ensure the promotion and protection of all human rights in the 21st century". On an other issue, Mr Seleznev referred to the intolerable threats that a powerful and independent oligarchy can impose on the entire economy of a country. He referred in particular to a part of the debate in the Inter-Parliamentary Council on the search for parliamentary mechanisms to avoid economic and political crises. In reply to the question of whether the Inter-Parliamentary Union was a kind of "Parliament of the United Nations", Mr Seleznev referred to the ongoing efforts for ever-closer co-operation between the two international organisations, stressing the importance of the co-operation agreement concluded last year by the UN and the IPU, and recalled the meeting of Speakers and Presidents of Parliaments from all over the world to be held next October at United Nations Headquarters in New York.
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