Russia Facing No Ultimatum From CoE On When It Should Repay Debt - Foreign Ministry

The Council of Europe (CoE) has not delivered any ultimatums to Russia on when the country should repay its debt owed to the institution, Andrey Kelin, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department of European Cooperation, said in an interview with Sputnik

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th July, 2019) The Council of Europe (CoE) has not delivered any ultimatums to Russia on when the country should repay its debt owed to the institution, Andrey Kelin, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department of European Cooperation, said in an interview with Sputnik.

Russia owes 55 million Euros ($61.8 million) as its contribution to the CoE budget for part of 2017 and 2018, after having already repaid 33 million euros for part of 2019.

"No one has delivered any ultimatums to us. We have always said that this is a technical issue," Kelin said, when asked whether there was any deadline.

Russia will also have to repay late payment interest fees, the official stated.

"I will not go into details, but penalties are an integral part of the unsettled debt," Kelin explained.

Russia decided in 2017 to suspend part of its contributions to the CoE budget until the rights of its delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the CoE, stripped in 2014 over Russia's alleged role in the Ukrainian crisis, were restored. The assembly restored the Russian delegation's rights in late June.