Matviyenko Says Slammed Russian Citizen's Detention In Letter To Norwegian Parliament Head

Russian upper house speaker Valentina Matviyenko said on Wednesday that she had sent a letter to the Norwegian parliament speaker in which she had stressed that the detention of a staff member of the Russian upper house in Oslo was a provocation.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) Russian upper house speaker Valentina Matviyenko said on Wednesday that she had sent a letter to the Norwegian parliament speaker in which she had stressed that the detention of a staff member of the Russian upper house in Oslo was a provocation.

Mikhail Bochkarev, a staff employee of the Russian upper house of parliament, was detained at the Gardermoen airport outside the Norwegian capital, Oslo, on September 21 following his participation in an IT conference in Norway's parliament, arranged by the European Center for Parliamentary Research and Documentation (ECPRD).

"I have sent a personal letter to the Norwegian parliament speaker in which I noted that it was a blatant provocation, there were no grounds for detaining our employee," Matviyenko told reporters.

She stressed that both the Russian Foreign Ministry and the parliament would take all necessary steps to ensure immediate release of Bochkarev. According to Matviyenko, Russia would reconsider whether it would take part in the education events organized by the EU agencies in the future.