US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the US delegation as a whole do not intend to maintain any contact with Russian representatives at the meeting of foreign ministers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which begins on Thursday in Skopje (North Macedonia). This was stated by the US ambassador to the OSCE, Michael Carpenter, responding to a question from the Russian Voice of America service during a press conference on November 28.
“We have no planned interaction with Russia,” said Michael Carpenter, commenting on the arrival of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the OSCE Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Skopje. Later, responding to a question from other journalists, the ambassador added that “Secretary of State Blinken’s paths will not cross in any way” with those of the Russian delegation and his head.
The American diplomat also stressed that the participation in the events of the heads of the foreign affairs agencies of Western countries and Russia on the same platform does not mean any softening of the course towards Moscow:
“We… will not accept a return to “business as usual” in the midst of this aggression, which has led to the largest war on the European continent since the Second World War… There is and will be no recognition of the atrocities committed as normal behavior. And we must remember that there are currently three members of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in the Russian Federation. “All of these employees are Ukrainians and are detained on trumped-up charges.”
On Tuesday, the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Oleg Nikolenko, said that the Ukrainian delegation will not participate in the meeting of the heads of the OSCE Foreign Ministries in Skopje, as it refuses to work there. platform with the Russian delegation. According to Nikolenko, “Russia has created an existential crisis in the OSCE and has made the organization hostage to its whims and aggression.”
Under such conditions, said a representative of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, “the presence of the Russian delegation at a ministerial meeting at the ministerial level for the first time since the start of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine will only aggravate the crisis in the “Russia finds itself has boosted the OSCE.”
Ukraine’s management had the support of the Baltic countries: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which also decided not to send their delegations to the meeting in North Macedonia.
Sergei Lavrov and several of his deputies have been under personal sanctions from the United States, Canada, the European Union and Britain since the beginning of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Responding to a Voice of America question about the possibilities of removing Moscow’s obstacles to the OSCE, Michael Carpenter said:
“The OSCE is an organization that was conceived as an instrument of cooperation. But when one or two participating States break all the rules, the only recourse for the rest of us is to condemn and isolate those violators of the Helsinki Final Act, to expose the atrocities – which, as I said, we have done consistently since the beginning of this war, and look for ways to overcome these obstacles.
Michael Carpenter called Belarus a “co-aggressor” of Russia in its war against Ukraine, but noted that Minsk representatives at OSCE events never officially supported Russian aggression against Kiev. At the same time, Belarus’ representatives in the OSCE vote in solidarity with Russia, which often does not allow the organization to make decisions.
When asked by Voice of America whether an attempt could be made to change OSCE rules to prevent blocking of the organization by one or more countries, Michael Carpenter said he “does not have a clear answer to this question.” In his words, particularly during the election of the OSCE president, “there are certain rules that state very clearly that this must be done on the basis of consensus and as a result of a series of votes.” Thanks to these rules, Russia managed to block the transfer of the OSCE presidency to Estonia for 2024, and it was decided that Malta would occupy that role.
However, the diplomat added, OSCE countries that support Ukraine have the opportunity to implement their plans. The US ambassador to the OSCE illustrated this by citing as an example the OSCE program to support Ukraine, which was accepted by the organization despite opposition from Moscow and Minsk:
“This is an OSCE program, a field mission currently operating on the territory of Ukraine. The operation has approximately 75 employees and is involved in all kinds of important projects: humanitarian aid, demining, psychosocial support for children, as well as many other programs. A total of 19 projects are in the implementation stage. This was achieved despite Russia’s vehement opposition to any OSCE support for Ukraine. Because? Because we were able to find like-minded countries that supported this program through donor donations.”
