Antony Blinken expected to speak in Europe about supporting Ukraine
American diplomacy chief Antony Blinken traveled to Europe on Monday to discuss his country’s support for Ukraine and was able to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov without meeting him in person.
The American Secretary of State is initially expected in Brussels for a meeting of the diplomatic heads of the NATO member states. He will discuss American support for Ukraine in the coming months, at a time when Kiev is waging a counteroffensive and the world’s attention is focused on the Middle East.
He is then scheduled to attend a meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in North Macedonia on Wednesday, according to James O’Brien, the top US diplomat for Europe. “We expect him to take part in a discussion with our OSCE colleagues about support for Ukraine,” James O’Brien told reporters.
However, according to the diplomat, the foreign minister’s agenda is likely to change. He also did not want to comment on a possible meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in North Macedonia.
On Monday, Mr. Lavrov announced that North Macedonia had authorized him to attend the annual meeting of the OSCE, an organization of which Russia is a member. Despite the European Union’s sanctions against Russia, Bulgaria granted him a flight over its airspace so that he could travel to the meeting in Skopje, a press release from Bulgarian diplomacy said.
However, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov rejected the hypothesis of a Lavrov-Blinken meeting. ” NO, [les Américains] “They haven’t asked, they won’t ask, and there will be no meeting,” he told official Russian agencies.
The United States has rejected most high-level contacts with Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, but Antony Blinken met Sergei Lavrov in March on the sidelines of the G20 summit in India.