US welcomes Malta’s ‘effective’ OSCE leadership at ‘very challenging time’
The US has welcomed Malta’s leadership of the OSCE as an effective one during a “very challenging time”, the government said yesterday.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the world’s largest security body. Malta is chairing it as part of a diplomatic solution to Russia’s refusal to approve Estonia for the role.
In a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Ian Borg called for united efforts to “de-escalate, defuse tensions, and encourage all sides engaged in conflict to work for a real pathway forward to solutions that are not destructive to the people”.
Borg and Blinken discussed current challenges in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Ukraine during a crucial month for Malta, as the island holds the presidency of the United Nations Security Council.
“We appreciate the leadership that Malta has shown leading the OSCE at a very challenging time but doing it in a very effective way and, also, of
course, on the UN Security Council, including in the presidency this month,” Blinken said.
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Borg and Blinken agreed that escalation and a wider war in the Middle East would help no one and called for effective,
long-term solutions for a peaceful resolution.
Borg reiterated Malta’s call for a permanent ceasefire, the immediate release of hostages captured on October 7 and a rapid increase in humanitarian aid for people in Gaza as a first step towards peace in the Middle East.
In Washington, Borg also held meetings with US Democratic Congressman William Keating, who sits on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, and with Michael Carpenter, the US Ambassador to the OSCE.
In his role as Chair-in-Office of the OSCE, the minister also addressed two public meetings.
On Monday, he joined Ambassador David T. Johnson – former US Ambassador to the OSCE – for a fireside chat organised by the Wilson Centre, a non-governmental organisation chartered by the US Congress to provide nonpartisan counsel and insights on global affairs to policymakers.
On Tuesday, Borg had a formal hearing with Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, the chairman of the Commission on Security and Co-operation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission.