The two-day annual meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) begins in Vienna today, which is expected to include senior diplomats from dozens of countries, DPA reports, BTA reports.
The United States and Russia will not be represented at the ministerial level. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will not attend in person, and both countries will be represented by their authorized envoys.
The forum, held under the chairmanship of Finland, will be entirely focused on the war in Ukraine. However, the ongoing negotiations and possible steps towards ending Russian military aggression are not included in the official agenda and no specific decisions are expected to be adopted. However, the conflict was expected to be discussed at an informal ministerial dinner last night, to which, according to diplomatic sources, Russia and Belarus were not invited.
The OSCE defines its role as a bridge between East and West and as a platform for promoting dialogue, democratic standards and the protection of human rights.
According to diplomats, it remains unclear what the organization's role will be after the war in Ukraine ends. While the OSCE has considerable experience in monitoring elections and crisis zones, any mission requires the full consent of all 57 member states.