Senko elected to IPU Executive Committee

MINSK, 10 October (BelTA) – Chairman of the Council of the Republic’s permanent commission for international affairs and national security Vladimir Senko, who led the Belarusian parliamentary delegation at the 129th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), was elected to the IPU Executive Committee on behalf of Eurasia geopolitical group on 9 October, BelTA learnt from the press service of the upper chamber of the Belarusian parliament.

On 9 October the Belarusian delegation took part in the meetings of the IPU Governing Board, which in particular approved amendments to the IPU charter and regulations and the draft budget for 2014. On the same day the Belarusian delegation met with President of the Council of States of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland Fillipo Lombardi to consider the prospects of intensifying the Belarusian-Swiss parliamentary dialogue and cooperation with inter-parliamentary organizations.

The Belarusian delegation also attended a plenary meeting of the Assembly, which highlighted the role of parliaments in observation of the prohibition of the use and elimination of chemical weapons.

Belarusian MPs took part in the debates on Assembly’s standing committees. Vladimir Senko spoke at the panel discussion “Towards a nuclear-weapon-free world: The contribution of parliaments”. The senator called upon the parliaments of the participating states to make maximum effort to accelerate the process of disarmament, making the use of the whole range of national and international legislative instruments, assisting the prompt adoption of a universal, unconditional and legally binding instrument to secure guarantees of non-use of nuclear weapons.

The parliamentary delegation also comprised Deputy Chairman of the permanent commission for ecology, nature management and Chernobyl Alla Naumchik. At the meeting of the IPU Standing Committee on Democracy and Human Rights she presented her report on the role of parliaments in protecting the rights of children, in particular unaccompanied migrant children and in preventing their exploitation in situations of war and conflict.

The IPU Assembly in Geneva on 7-9 October gathered nearly 1,200 participants from 129 countries.