The Minister of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba will boycott the OSCE ministerial meeting in North Macedonia due to the fact that the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry Sergey Lavrov will attend the summit.
This was reported by the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Oleh Nikolenko.
Sergey Lavrov will attend the OSCE ministerial summit for the first time since the start of the full-scale invasion. In order for Lavrov to be able to fly to the country, Bulgaria temporarily opened its airspace. This will only intensify the crisis into which Russia has driven the OSCE.
"We should work together to save the OSCE from Russia, and not send signals about the possibility of returning to forms of cooperation.... In view of this, the delegation of Ukraine will not participate in the OSCE ministerial meeting at the level of the minister of foreign affairs," said the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Nikolenko.
At the same time, Ukraine is ready to continue working with partners to restore respect for the Helsinki Final Act, Nikolenko noted. Ukraine also thanked North Macedonia for prioritizing the issue of countering Russian aggression during its chairmanship of the OSCE.
- From November 30 to December 1, the meeting of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the OSCE will be held in the city of Skopje, in North Macedonia.
- In April 2022, after the start of Russiaʼs full-scale aggression, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that Russiaʼs membership in the OSCE "poses a threat to security and cooperation in Europe." He called on the organization to exclude Russia from its membership. But this never happened.
- In November 2022, the authorities of Poland, which chaired the OSCE in 2022, did not issue visas to the Russian delegation to participate in the 29th meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the member countries of the organization, explaining this by the desire to "isolate Russia as much as possible." However, even despite this, the meeting participants were unable to adopt a joint resolution.
- On January 9, 2023, the head of the OSCE opposed the exclusion of the Russian Federation from the organization. Helga Maria Schmid justified her position by the need to preserve "communication channels". At the same time, she added that "keeping diplomatic channels open does not mean negotiating."