Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his outgoing US counterpart Antony Blinken are set to face off over the war in Ukraine at the annual meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Malta on Thursday.
While Ukraine will be the key political issue, the meeting is due to formally approve last-minute agreements on issues including senior staff positions at the security and rights body, where Western powers often accuse Russia of violating human rights and other international norms. Make allegations.
The gathering of foreign ministers and other officials from the 57 participating states from North America, Europe and Central Asia this year is overshadowed by the return of US President-elect Donald Trump, whose advisers are proposing an end to the war. Due to which a large part of the country will be snatched away. From Ukraine to Russia.
With Trump taking office just over a month later, Western powers plan to reiterate their support for Ukraine, while Russia is likely to resume criticism of the organization. Lavrov said last year that the OSCE was “essentially being transformed into an appendage of NATO and the EU”.
It is Lavrov’s first visit to the EU since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The OSCE is the successor to the body established during the Cold War to engage East and West. However, in recent years, and especially since it invaded Ukraine, Russia has used an effective veto for each country to block many important decisions, often paralyzing the organization.
However, this year, diplomats say the countries blocking agreement on the OECD budget over issues related to their conflict in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh are Armenia and Azerbaijan, rather than Russia.
Diplomats say an agreement was reached this week to fill four senior OSCE posts, including the secretary-general, who will be taken by Turkey’s Feridun Sinirlioglu, who was foreign minister in the caretaker government in 2015.
The most important annual decision in the OECD – which country will next take over the annually rotating presidency – has long been decided, as Finland will hold it for the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act that laid the foundation of the current OECD.
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