North Macedonia, a NATO member, said it would temporarily lift a ban on Russian flights next week to allow Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to attend a conference in the country.
A government statement said the “window” would run from November 29 to December 1, when the OSCE foreign ministers’ meeting will be held in North Macedonia.
Russia is one of the 57 member countries of the OSCE, which is currently chaired by North Macedonia. Most European countries banned flights from Russia after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
It is not clear whether Lavrov will accept the invitation to the conference, which North Macedonia’s foreign minister says was extended to him last week.
To reach the landlocked country, the Russian delegation will have to pass through the airspace of other EU and NATO members.
Lavrov will visit Iran
With the exception of Belarus, Lavrov has not visited any European country since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. So far, he has only been to Turkey, a NATO member without a ban on Russian flights, and to the UN headquarters in New York, the Associated Press recalls.
“The options (about which airspace the Russian plane should pass through) are not many, these are Bulgaria and Greece. If we decide (on Lavrov’s presence), I don’t see why they (Bulgaria and Greece) would object, because of the possibility of exceptions, such as the OSCE summit. Lavrov was also in New York, within the UN, he was not in the US on a bilateral visit. He is not coming to visit Skopje, here he is coming to the OSCE. We must distinguish between the bilateral and the multilateral nature of the meeting,” Macedonian Foreign Minister Buyar Osmani commented, BTA reported.
When asked what is Kiev’s position on Sergey Lavrov’s arrival in Skopje, he pointed out that he is in constant communication with his Ukrainian counterpart.
“I was also in Kyiv, I understand how delicate the issue is and this complicates our work even more. With such a division, the arrival of one risks the arrival of another. It is important for us that the OSCE continues to work,” Osmani said.
2023-11-25 19:31:00
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