MOSCOW – The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) Secretary General Lamberto Zannier will pay a working visit to Moscow on April 24-27, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
The negotiations between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Zannier will be held on April 25. “During the negotiations, Lavrov and Zannier will discuss the OSCE’s work in facilitating the settlement of the internal Ukrainian conflict,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
“Russia is cooperating with Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in the Trilateral Contact Group Martin Sajdik and the coordinators of its four working subgroups. We are closely following activities of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. We are intending to consider together with the secretary general possible measures to increase its efficiency under the current mandate. It is important to comply with the principles of objectiveness and impartiality during the mission’s work,” the ministry said.
Slovakia’s Marcel Pesko, the director of the OSCE Secretariat’s Conflict Prevention Centre, who is accompanying Zannier during the visit, will attend border crossing points of Donetsk and Gukovo on the Russian-Ukrainian border, where a mission of OSCE observers in deployed, on April 24, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
“We are generally satisfied with the group’s work, we are standing in favor of a strict compliance with its mandate, which is to carry out monitoring and inform on the situation at border crossing points and cross-border movements,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
An important place during the consultations on the agenda of Zannier’s visit “will be devoted to the settlement with the OSCE’s participation of other regional conflicts, the Transdniestrian and Nagorno-Karabakh ones, as well as the Geneva Discussions on stability and security in the South Caucasus,” the ministry said.
Zannier’s meeting with the management of the Collective Security Treaty Organization is also planned during his visit to Russia, and he will participate in the sixth Moscow International Security Conference at the invitation of the Russian Defense Ministry and a meeting of the Valdai Club, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Zannier’s visit will take place at the invitation of the Russian foreign minister.
