Duma deputy skeptical about Russia G8 membership suspension

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http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/0/28.html?id_issue=10751903

MOSCOW. Feb 19 (Interfax) - Neither the U.S. Senate nor the U.S. Administration will support an initiative on suspending Russia's membership in the G8, said Chairman of the Russian State Duma international affairs committee Konstantin Kosachyov.

Commenting to Interfax on the submission of a draft resolution by a group of U.S. senators recommending that the White House consider the suspension of Russia's membership of the G8 because of the curtailing of democratic processes in it, Kosachyov recalled that this idea was proposed not for the first time.

"This initiative is exclusively political in its nature. It reflects the delusion common among some Western politicians that G8 membership was a kind of award given to Russia in advance to encourage certain political processes in our country," Kosachyov said. snip

"Without Russia, the seven leading countries will find it much more difficult or even impossible to solve such pressing problems as combat against international terrorism, nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the overcoming of the economic gap between the North and the South, drug trafficking, and transnational crime," Kosachyov said.

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