Vice President Beatriz Argimón completed her trip within the framework of the Official Mission for the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) for Ukraine and Russia (countries at war since the end of February) returning this Sunday. On the trip, she held various meetings with different authorities and hierarchies of both countries, all in the cities of kyiv and Moscow. On her return, she gave an interview to Telemundo where she made a balance of her visit.
Asked if he was able to move freely in those countries, Argimón replied: “Yes, it was one of the aspects that we highlighted the most: in addition to having been with parliamentarians, we asked to be with civil society, and the neighbors said that they were there because they wanted to immediately rebuild their lives,” said the vice president, who was in the Telemundo studios to speak on the subject.
“We were able to handle ourselves with a lot of freedom within the security that had been provided to us. And we try parallel situations, in parliaments and with citizens”, he added.
The Uruguayan vice president pointed out that “the situations are very polarized.” “We see that more dialogue is needed. Today it is not clear that this will end soon. That is why the need that everyone seeks to open doors, because they feel that the situation is very closed and that there would be no will to move forward in ways of sitting at a table, ”she added.
non-eurocentric commission
“We were not going to talk about the war and ask for it to end, because as parliamentarians we have no influence on anything that has to do with the actions of the Executives in these cases. But talking to our peers is important. It was not a Eurocentric commission, we were all from different places, from Africa, Asia, Latin America. When the governments found out that this was the only delegation that both countries accepted, there was a whole mechanism so that this could be carried out,” he said.
The vice president explained that first they “presented the perspective” of what was lived in each country, and then the meetings between the parliamentary peers took place. “The two parliaments were grateful that it was not a Eurocentric commission. And also the two parliaments told us that they were willing to dialogue,” said Argimón, and said that “a second step is already being implemented that has to do with meeting.”
“Everything is arranged as if anticipating an attack. It is a feeling of great anguish. There is a lot of anguish, a lot of tension,” said Argimón about how the climate of war is experienced in those countries.
“A few days before, Putin called the parliamentarians who later had the meeting with us, that days before we had made a statement in which we talked about invasion. For this reason, the meeting in Russia began quite tensely, because we were criticized for this issue. But what started tense ended better”, concluded Argimón.
