A constructive dialogue took place at the meeting of the Commission on Cooperation between the Federation Council and the Parliament of South Ossetia. This was stated by First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, Co-Chairman of the Russian part of the Commission, Viktor Bondarev, commenting on the results of the meeting.
“Today, for the first time as Co-Chairman of the commission from the Russian Federation, I participated in this meeting, so I liked the constructiveness of all the questions raised by the Ossetian party,” Bondarev said.
He noted that many previously asked questions had already been answered by both prties. The same questions that have arisen during the current meeting will be worked out.
“We will bring to the Ossetian side the information they are requesting. Perhaps this will be at our next meeting, somewhere in late September, early October of this year. Otherwise, everything went very well, productively. The deputy corps shows great concern for the citizens of Ossetia, for those who are in the special military operation. Unfortunately, there are also the missing and dead people on the Ossetian side. There are some questions about providing for the families of servicemen. We will consider all this and give answers on each case,” Bondarev added.
He also commented on the issue of taking into account in Russia the insurance experience accumulated by citizens of South Ossetia after 1991 for receiving a Russian pension.
Bondarev has clarified that to resolve this issue, precise calculations are needed from the Ossetian side.
“We have decided what the Ossetian side needs to do so that this issue is understandable and specific, because until the appropriate calculations are made on how many people need to receive a pension, we cannot even contact the Russian Ministry of Labor,” the First Deputy said.
Bondarev has noted that previous appeals were not considered by the Russian Ministry of Labor due to the lack of specifics.
"I think that after the meeting, the task will be set here, in the relevant ministry, to prepare the necessary data. Therefore, I think that when there are precise calculations, then we can talk and solve this problem," he said.
The head of the parliamentary committee on foreign policy and inter-parliamentary relations, Zaza Driaev, emphasized the long-term and constructive cooperation with the Federation Council.
"We have been working with the Federation Council for a long time. We will try to continue to work constructively on pressing issues for the Republic," Driaev said.
One of the issues was removed from the agenda due to the fact that an agreement between South Ossetia and Russia on the settlement of dual citizenship issues was signed and ratified. As the head of the committee has noted, the Federation Council played a major role in this.
"We have been working towards this for four years, in 2021 the agreement was already signed, it was ratified. Our countries already exchanged letters of commendation in April of this year. We hope that the agreement will soon come into force and citizens will be able to acquire Russian citizenship,” Driaev said.
