MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st December, 2020) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday discussed preparations for this week's meeting of the OSCE council of foreign ministers in a phone conversation with his Italian counterpart, Luigi Di Maio, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The talk about the meeting, set to take place this Thursday and Friday in Albania, was initiated at the behest of the Italian side. The ministers are said to have also discussed several pressing issues of bilateral cooperation and exchanged opinions on current international matters.
"They have reviewed the preparation for the upcoming meeting of the council of the ministers for foreign affairs of the OSCE in Tirana on December 3-4 this year, including the appointment of a new secretary general and heads of three bodies of the organization. The Russian side emphasized its readiness to join the 'packaged' decision, which includes the appointment of [Former Kazakh Foreign Minister] K.K. [Kairat Kudaybergenovich] Abdrakhmanov, proposed by Kazakhstan, as the high Commissioner on national minorities, which is a priority for Russia," the ministry said in a statement.
The council is the OSCE's central decision-making and governing body, which brings together the foreign ministers of the 57 member-states annually to discuss the security situation in the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian regions. The upcoming meeting will be the first one to take place online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
