Members of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs at an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday unanimously decided to elect former Secretary of State and Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin as chairman of the Сommittee instead of Konstantin Kosachev, who took the post of deputy speaker of the chamber, Committee member Vadim Dengin told TASS.
This decision must now be approved by the Federation Council at the plenary session. Earlier, the senators had put this additional issue on the agenda.
"Karasin was unanimously elected chairman by all committee members," Dengin said.
On Wednesday, the Federation Council decided to appoint Kosachev as deputy speaker in place of Ilyas Umakhanov, who in turn was appointed Special Representative of the Federation Council for cooperation with international organizations on the preparation and holding of the World Conference on Inter-religious and Inter-ethnic Dialogue, which will be held in Russia on May 21, 2022. In addition, the senators decided to transfer Karasin from the Committee on Science, Education and Culture to the Committee on Foreign Affairs at his request.
As Federation Council Chairwoman Valentina Matvienko noted during the meeting, consultations were held with Umakhanov, Kosachev and a number of committee members in the run-up to the meeting regarding a candidate for the position of committee head. "Everyone named only one candidate, the most acceptable in this situation - to recommend to the committee to elect Grigory Borisovich Karasin, former Deputy Foreign Minister, chairman of the Committee on International Affairs. We all know Grigory Karasin well. He is a well-known person abroad, he is an Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, and he has worked a lot abroad, but more in Russia in very responsible diplomatic positions," said Matvienko.
Kosachev has chaired the Federation Council's Foreign Affairs Committee for more than six years, since December 2014. Karasin previously served as the first deputy chairman of the Committee on Science, Education and Culture.
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Photo: Valery Sharifulin / TASS
Based on materials from TASS