MOSCOW. June 18 (Interfax) - The Russian and Ukrainian human rights commissioners have agreed on the principles of visiting prisoners; the precise schedule will be defined following responses of two countries' authorities, Russian ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova said.
"The first thing we decided to discuss was the principles of monitoring visits. We agreed that those principles will be based on reciprocity, parity, simultaneousness, synchronicity of visiting our citizens held in Russia and Ukraine," Moskalkova told reporters following a meeting with the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada's Human Rights Commissioner Liudmyla Denisova.
The schedule of visits to convicts will be defined after the two countries' relevant authorities respond to the ombudsmen's requests, Moskalkova said. Those requests have already been sent, she said.
"Today is significant for us because under the agreements and through the president's trust in the institution of human rights commissioner it is now possible to establish a humanitarian corridor to help people," Moskalkova said.
Denisova said she is confident that the agreements reached on Monday would facilitate building confidence between the two institutions.
"We will verify incarceration conditions and make sure that those things we wrote to each other in our letters are true and it will be a step towards further actions of two countries," she said.