Official: Moscow to approve new countersanctions bill quickly

MOSCOW, Apr 16 (PRIME) – Russia will not drag its feet on approval of new countersanctions against the U.S. that was submitted to the parliament’s lower house State Duma on April 13, as the situation demands its fastest approval, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told PRIME on Monday.

On April 6, the U.S. imposed sanctions against 38 Russian tycoons, officials and companies. On April 15, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said that Washington plans to announce new sanctions against Russia due to the situation in Syria, saying that the sanctions will cover companies that allegedly supplied technologies for production of chemical weapons to Syria.

“I think that the schedule of consideration of this important bill will be built so as not to delay it, the situation dictates the necessity of quite vigorous efforts. We can’t say exactly when and what will happen. But from the political standpoint, from the point of view of the Foreign Ministry, we see the need of it happening rather dynamically,” Ryabkov said.

He also said that Moscow was discussing functioning of the world markets under uncontrollable expansion of the U.S. sanctions in all directions with the country’s partners under BRICS and the G20, and in bilateral negotiations with many other states.

When asked about whether Russia had discussed decreasing the world’s dependency on the U.S. dollar with its BRICS and G20 partners, he said, “Of course, the topic of the U.S. abuse of the status of the U.S. dollar as a leading world’s reserve currency was discussed during the negotiations. Still, it would be wrong for me to go into detail, as they may use it against us in their blatant economic aggression against Russia.”

“That is why I confirm what I’ve said before – yes, we are working on that.”

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