ST. PETERSBURG. April 28 (Interfax) - Parliamentary diplomacy is assuming special importance in the current circumstances, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
"I believe parliamentary diplomacy is assuming additional and huge significance right now," Putin said at a meeting with members of the Russian Council of Legislators on Friday.
"Our former partners in some countries are maniacally ruining the legal basis and channels for dialogue, and are trying to enforce their views and so-called rules on us," he said.
"What rules? Nobody has seen them. Who wrote them, these rules? They write them themselves, somewhere in secret, and then do something with it themselves [again] in secret, but we aren't going to follow them there, nor are we going to follow those rules," Putin said.
In these circumstances, the intensity of Russia's international contacts, including at the parliamentary level, is in fact increasing instead of declining, he said.
"This is a very good, correct, and illustrative trend," Putin said.