Russian Parliament Calls on France to Take Part in Anti-Terror Coalition

A senior Russian lawmaker called on Paris to fight terrorism in the framework of international platforms.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Leonid Slutsky, the chairman of the Russian lower house of parliament's international affairs committee, called on Thursday for France to take part in the anti-terror coalition focusing on diplomatic efforts.

“You should join our coalition. We need France. We need not France with assault rifles, we need France on international platforms. We need France for military planning and full-fledged cooperation with Damascus,” Slutsky said.

A French delegation headed by Thierry Mariani, a member of The Republicans party, arrived in Moscow earlier in the day for a two-day visit. The lawmakers held a meeting with Russian lower house speaker Vyacheslav Volodin and are expected to partake in talks at the Russian Foreign Ministry, as well as the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, on Friday.

Political dialogue between France and Russia deteriorated after the eruption of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, which provoked the introduction of political and economic sanctions against Russia by the European Union and the United States, as well as Moscow's reciprocal restrictive measures on some food products imported from those states.