Several more ministers to boycott OSCE meeting due to Russia's participation – Kuleba

Several colleagues confirmed to Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba that they would not be attending the OSCE meeting in protest against Russia’s participation in it.

Source: Kuleba in Brussels, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Kuleba stressed that Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which publicly announced a boycott of the meeting in North Macedonia, are not a complete list of countries, the ministers from which will not come there.

"There are more than four countries that do not agree with the participation of [Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov," the minister said.

Kuleba added that he has already received assurances from several more colleagues who will avoid participating in a joint meeting with Lavrov in Skopje.

Quote: "There are four countries that have said they will not be [represented] at the OSCE ministerial meeting. But there are also ministers who came up to me and said that although they are here [at the NATO meeting in Brussels] they will not attend [the OSCE meeting in Skopje], but do not want to say it publicly. There are also those ministers who will be at dinner on Wednesday, where Lavrov will not be present, but they won't be there at the meeting on Thursday," Kuleba said.

Though the crisis resulted from North Macedonia's decision to invite Lavrov to a meeting and grant him visas, the minister emphasised that he did not want to criticise the country. The minister declared, "I want to defend the Macedonians, who have supported Ukraine all year long."

On 28 November, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry announced that Kuleba would not be attending the OSCE meeting due to the participation of Sergey Lavrov in the event. Shortly after, the foreign ministers of the Baltic States also decided to abstain from the OSCE summit.

Some states have made a different decision. For example, Bulgaria opened its airspace for Russian airplane with Lavrov onboard.  

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