OSCE meeting causes rift over whether to share stage with Russia's
Lavrov
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[November 29, 2023]
By Andrew Gray, Francois Murphy and Ingrid Melander
BRUSSELS/VIENNA (Reuters) - The Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe's annual foreign ministers' meeting on Thursday
has split member states, with Baltic nations and Ukraine refusing to
attend over the presence of Russia's Sergei Lavrov and urging others to
as well.
The OSCE is the successor to an organisation set up during the Cold War
as a place for Soviet and Western powers to engage, but is now largely
paralysed as Russia keeps using what is effectively a veto each country
has at the security and rights body. Field missions in the Balkans and
Central Asia continue.
The United States and its allies are seeking to simultaneously keep the
OSCE alive and hold Russia to account over its invasion of Ukraine. They
are attending while making a point of denouncing Moscow's actions - a
stance that some of Ukraine's closest allies have little truck with.
"How can you talk with an aggressor who is committing genocide, full
aggression against another member state Ukraine?" Estonian Foreign
Minister Margus Tsahkna told reporters at a meeting with his
counterparts from other NATO member states.
Estonia had been due to take over the annually rotating OSCE
chairmanship but Russia spent months blocking it. A last-minute deal for
neutral Malta to take over the chairmanship must also be formally
approved at Thursday and Friday's OSCE meeting in Skopje, hosted by the
current chair North Macedonia.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Nov/29/images/ads/current/napa_sda_HFH_2023.png)
Poland, which hosted the last such so-called Ministerial Council a year
ago, nine months after Russia invaded Ukraine, did not invite Lavrov
then.
"So I decided to together with my colleagues Latvia and Lithuania and
also the Ukrainian Foreign Minister not to participate in the meeting in
Skopje because I think that instead of sitting there together with
Lavrov around the table, Lavrov should be put on trial for war crimes,"
Tsahkna said.
NO 'BUSINESS AS USUAL'
The situation at the OSCE currently tends to reflect the wider
diplomatic reality over Ukraine. While only Belarus regularly sides with
Russia at OSCE meetings, this week's absentees worry that Western
powers' commitment to supporting Ukraine is wavering.
The United States has been at pains to reassure them while arguing that
the OSCE, given the various standards it upholds and which Russia has
also signed up to, is the right place to hold Moscow to account.
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![](../images/112923PIX/news_z21.jpg)
The OSCE sign is seen outside Hofburg Palace as a Parliamentary
Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE) takes place in Vienna, Austria, February 23, 2023.
REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Nov/29/images/ads/current/graue_lda_preowned_112023.jpg)
"First of all ... we have no planned interactions with Russia. We
will also not accept any return to business as usual in the midst of
this aggression, which has resulted in the largest land war on the
European continent since World War Two," U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE
Michael Carpenter told reporters.
"A lot has been done to expose Russian atrocities, and I expect that
that will be the theme, of condemning Russia's aggression against
Ukraine, in all its forms."
It later became clear, however, that U.S. Secretary of State Antony
Blinken would only attend meetings with his North Macedonian
counterpart and like-minded countries on Wednesday, leaving before
the Ministerial Council begins on Thursday.
The OSCE is not the only international body where the West and
Russia meet. Lavrov still attends Group of 20 events around the
world and the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Last week Russian President Vladimir Putin used a virtual meeting of
the G20 to give an eight-minute speech in which he called the war in
Ukraine a "tragedy" that must end soon.
In terms of substance, the stakes in Skopje are low. With the
chairmanship settled the main open issue is whether four top OSCE
officials, including Secretary-General Helga Schmid, will have their
terms extended.
The absentee countries, however, fear that Lavrov will use the
meeting as a platform, and any meetings with countries other than
staunch ally Belarus will be watched closely.
"It just so happens that the aggressor country is having a veto, and
in a sense trying to hijack the agenda of the OSCE. I think that is
simply wrong," Latvian Foreign Minister Krisjanis Karins told
reporters at the NATO meeting.
"We also through our action we are calling attention to what we
think is a fundamental problem that does need to be addressed," he
added.
(Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by Francois Murphy,
Editing by William Maclean)
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