MOSCOW, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said Tuesday that the upper parliament house is ready to join dialogue with lawmakers of Ukraine, France and Germany to seek a solution to the Donbass conflict in eastern Ukraine.
"The very idea of inter-parliamentary dialogue in the Normandy format is certainly very useful," Matviyenko said at a press conference, adding that it could contribute to a peaceful settlement of the Donbass issue.
According to Matviyenko, such dialogue will be effective only if inter-factional groups are formed by the four parliaments, which will include both the ruling parties and opposition groups.
Matviyenko said she hopes that the Ukrainian parliament Verkhovna Rada, where President Volodymyr Zelensky's Servant of the People party has the majority, will respond warmly to the establishment of the inter-parliamentary dialogue.
The Normandy Four was created in June 2014, when leaders of the four countries met on the margins of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day allied landings in Normandy to resolve the Donbass conflict, which erupted in April that year.
At the last meeting of the Normandy Four leaders in Paris earlier this month after a three-year interval, Ukraine and Russia agreed on the full and comprehensive implementation of a ceasefire in Donbass by the end of 2019.
