Blinkeni arrives in Skopje, will not meet with Lavrov

The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, arrived in Skopje on Wednesday night, where he met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of North Macedonia and the Chairman of the OSCE, Bujar Osmani.

After the meeting with Osmani, Blinkeni will participate in the working dinner organized on the sidelines of the OSCE summit, which begins on November 30 and ends on December 1. According to diplomatic sources, Blinken will leave North Macedonia after dinner, while the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergey Lavrov, will arrive in Skopje later this evening.

Blinken said he was delighted that Malta had been chosen to chair the next OSCE summit in 2024.

"You have done an extremely good job, you have managed to expand the mission of the OSCE, despite great obstacles. I am glad that Malta will take the baton. We have a strategic partnership that is really focused on the work we do together as allies and partners, but also on the work we do together on a bilateral level," said Blinken.

In an interview on Wednesday with Radio Free Europe, Osmani rejected assessments that Russia has won by voting for Malta to be the organization's leading country in 2024, after Moscow vetoed NATO member Estonia.

The US Secretary of State made no other comments about the meeting of the Council of Ministers of the OSCE and the participation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Sergei Lavrov, in it.

Lavrov's participation in this meeting was made possible by Skopje and Sofia, which temporarily suspended the sanctions imposed by the European Union on the flights of Russian aircraft due to Russian aggression against Ukraine.

The permit is temporary and valid only for the meeting of the Council of Ministers of the OSCE, or 3 hours before and 72 hours after the specified date.

76 delegations from 57 member states and partner states of the organization will participate in the OSCE meeting.

But the lifting of the ban on the Russian diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, caused the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Dmitry Kuleba, and the Baltic countries such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to cancel their participation in the OSCE Ministerial Council.

Meanwhile, Blinken has said that the USA strongly supports the Euro-Atlantic integration and the work to strengthen the democratic institutions of North Macedonia.

"We strongly support the work you are doing for greater energy diversification in the region and beyond, which will have a huge impact on all of this. You can count the USA as a strong partner and that is why I am here tonight, not only for the OSCE, but also for North Macedonia and to show how much we value the partnership we have", he said./rel