Council of Europe body elects new president

By Hajer M'tiri

PARIS (AA) - The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) elected Stella Kyriakides from Greek Cypriot administration as its new president on Tuesday following the resignation of Pedro Agramunt for an "unauthorized" visit to Syria and meeting with President Bashar al-Assad in March.

Kyriakides, 61, was Chairperson of the PACE’s Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development as well as a member of the Monitoring Committee and the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination.

"She will be the 30th president of PACE since 1949, the first Cypriot, and the third woman to take up the post,” according to a PACE statement.

Kyriakides won a third-round vote over Lithuania’s Emanuelis Zingeris and will remain in office until late January next year.

"My priority is to bring about calmness, consensus, credibility and unity," Kyriakides said in her first remarks as PACE president.

Agramunt visited Syria on March 20 and 21 along with members of Russia’s State Duma -- lower house of parliament -- and some PACE representatives.

They met Assad and held talks during a joint meeting of the international committees of the Russian and Syrian parliaments. Agramunt said at the time he had traveled to Syria as a private individual rather than as PACE president.

On April 28, the PACE Bureau passed a motion of no confidence in Agramunt, president of the body since January 2016.

Agramunt will remain a member of the Spanish delegation at PACE.