I expect all ministers to be present at the OSCE Ministerial Meeting in Skopje. The EU’s decision on sanctions for overflights of Russian planes does not apply to events of a multilateral nature such as the OSCE, said the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the OSCE Bujar Osmani regarding the issue of the participation of the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov.He emphasized that all visa requests for countries where visas are needed have been processed. The decision is of the Republic of Macedonia, and when it is made, the citizens will be informed.

Asked if NATO’s approval is needed for Lavrov’s arrival, he said that there is no need for consultations with NATO regarding the OSCE because the Alliance is not a party to the organization.As for the fact that if any of the other OSCE member countries oppose Lavrov’s participation, Osmani said that they are also following this carefully.

– I have already said publicly, one of the reasons why I traveled to Kyiv was to discuss the position of Ukraine in such a condition. We are still talking with all participating countries to ensure the presence of all, said Osmani.

According to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, he reiterated that his participation is expected.

– I have no indications so far that he will not come. So, we are preparing for the arrival of the US Secretary of State, His Excellency Osmani.

Regarding the reaching of a consensus for the chairman of the OSCE for the coming year, he underlined that it is by far the most important issue in the OSCE, because without a chairman the Organization does not have a political mandate to continue working and there are several scenarios.

– Here we have developed several scenarios. The first scenario we are working on is to continue to seek support for the only candidate, which is Estonia. If this scenario is exhausted and Estonia cannot reach a consensus, we are looking for an alternative country that can reach a consensus. If we cannot find an alternative state to the Skopje Council of Ministers, then possibly theoretically the question can be raised that we should continue for another year. But I would go to the Government with a request for approval if a formal request from other member states arrives after scenario 1 for Estonia, scenario 2 for another country is exhausted, Minister Osmani said.

He reiterated that 76 delegations will come to Skopje, of which 57 are from participating countries and the rest are from partner countries from the Mediterranean group and from the Asian group, that is, about a thousand members of the delegations.

So far, he said, all preparations have been made for the most massive event that ever happened in RSM. He reminded of the Government’s decision made yesterday, as he said, at his request, that November 30 be a non-working day in Skopje for the state and public administration, primary and secondary schools, but not for kindergartens and health institutions, while November 29, Wednesday the working hours should be until 12 o’clock, because in the afternoon it is expected that the delegations will already start arriving due to the difficulties in the traffic, and of course also for security reasons, so that the institutions can do their work more easily.

In order to reduce the costs of organizing the event, yesterday he sent a request to the honorary consuls of other countries in Skopje, those who are ready to offer their vehicles, to help in this conference by providing their official vehicles as VIP vehicles for the high delegations .

-Of course, we made a decision to the Government to recommend that all mayors also provide the opportunity to deliver their vehicles, those who meet the conditions, and of course all state institutions in order to minimize the costs of the MFA in organizing the conference, he pointed out Ottomans.