The OSCE’s 31st Ministerial Council will kick off today in Malta as several Eastern European states protest the presence of Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov at the conference. Maria Zakharova, the director of propaganda at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was denied entry to Malta after applying for a visa to attend the conference. She is known for making outrageous and ridiculous statements at her press conferences in Moscow riddled with lies and stupidities, such as when she said that Srebrenica massacre was staged, and also called the Russian war crimes in Bucha as “fake news”. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is also expected to give the regular lies and disinformation.
Bilateral meetings between state ministers began yesterday with various high-profile meetings having taken place already. The new EU High Representative Kaja Kallas met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha met with UK Foreign Minister David Lammy. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha is also appealing to ministers of Western states to speed up transfers of already pledged weapons provisions to Ukraine. Many weapons provisions pledged by the US, Germany and other European allies still need to be delivered to Ukraine.
There is optimism of renewing the organisation despite the disagreements with Russia’s presence and next year’s conference is schedule to be held in Finland but there is yet, still no agreement or plan for the appointment of a new Secretary-General. Discussions were held during yesterday’s dinner between ministers, although Russia and Belarus were not present for the dinner.
Malta’s Premier Robert Abela held a private meeting with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Foreign Minister Ian Borg is chairing the conference.
Newsroom
Leave a Reply