Only way to save OSCE is to reboot it without Russia – Ukraine's Foreign Minister

Ukraine is convinced that any attempts to save the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) involving Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will be fruitless.

Source: Dmytro Kuleba, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, in Brussels, responding to questions from European Pravda

Details: Kuleba explained that North Macedonia’s consent for Lavrov to attend the OSCE Ministerial meeting, and the consent of many ministers for him to travel to Skopje, were dictated by their intention to overcome a crisis in the organisation.

"There are a number of countries that think they need to resort to this step in order to save the organisation from collapsing," Kuleba explained, adding that Russia had blackmailed the OSCE by threatening not to support the new chairpersonship and block the appointments of the heads of OSCE bodies unless the restrictions were lifted from Lavrov. The result is that the meeting in North Macedonia will be the first one at which Western leaders will sit at the same table as Lavrov.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry is convinced that this will not save the organisation from the crisis that threatens its very existence.

"I think that if we really want to save the OSCE, then we must either re-found the organisation or find a way to oust Russia [from it]," Kuleba explained.

Background: European Pravda reported that on 23 November, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry announced that Kuleba had refused to attend the OSCE meeting due to the organisers’ decision to invite Sergei Lavrov. The foreign ministers of the Baltic states later joined the boycott.

Later it was revealed that several more ministers would boycott the OSCE meeting but had not announced it publicly.

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