Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak will visit Baku from November 27-28, where he will take part in the inauguration of the republic's embassy in Azerbaijan, and then, as the current Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) chairperson-in-office, he will visit eastern Ukraine from November 28-29, including the contact line in Donbas region, Slovak Foreign Ministry spokesman Boris Gandel told Sputnik
PRAGUE (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th November, 2019) Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak will visit Baku from November 27-28, where he will take part in the inauguration of the republic's embassy in Azerbaijan, and then, as the current Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) chairperson-in-office, he will visit eastern Ukraine from November 28-29, including the contact line in Donbas region, Slovak Foreign Ministry spokesman Boris Gandel told Sputnik.
"In Baku, Mr. Lajcak will hold talks with his colleague Elmar Mammadyarov, and will also be received by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister Ali Asadov. In addition, the foreign minister will take part in the grand opening of the Slovak Embassy in Azerbaijan," Gandel said.
The next day, Lajcak, who assumed the position of the OSCE chair earlier this year, will travel to Ukraine, where he will visit the Stanytsia Luhanska checkpoint in Donbas to see a newly reopened bridge with his colleague Vadym Prystaiko, according to the spokesman. The self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic and Kiev agreed to rebuild the bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River this summer after it was destroyed in 2015. It was reopened on November 20, through the mediation of the OSCE.
Lajcak will also transfer Slovak humanitarian aid to the Ukrainian partners. This will be the official's fourth visit to the country this year, according to Gandel.
Kiev launched a military operation against the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014 after they proclaimed independence from Ukraine, refusing to recognize the new central government. A ceasefire deal between warring parties was signed in Minsk a year later, following the talks brokered by the leaders of the so-called Normandy Four group � France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine. Despite this agreement, however, sporadic fighting continues in Donbas.
