Russian foreign minister to attend rights group meeting
MOSCOW — Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday that he plans to travel to North Macedonia later this week to attend a conference, a trip that would mark his first visit to a NATO member country since Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022.
Russia is one of the 57 members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, set up during the Cold War to help defuse EastWest tensions.
North Macedonia, which holds the group’s rotating chairmanship, last week invited Lavrov to an OSCE foreign ministers’ meeting that is scheduled to begin Thursday in Skopje, the capital of the small, landlocked Balkan country.
NATO members banned Russian flights after Moscow launched its military action in Ukraine in February 2022. To reach North Macedonia, Lavrov’s plane would need to fly through the airspace of Bulgaria or Greece, which also belong to the Western military alliance.
Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry on Monday said it has granted permission for the overflight of Lavrov’s plane through Bulgarian airspace.
The permission was granted on a request from North Macedonia.
The permission, however, “does not apply to members of his delegation, who are also sanctioned persons, according to the current EU law, which is explicitly mentioned in the reply note of the Bulgarian side,” the statement read.
In Moscow, Lavrov said his office has received requests for bilateral meetings from several foreign ministers of other countries who plan to be in Skopje.
“Of course, we will meet with everyone,” he said,