World News | NATO Member North Macedonia to Briefly Lift Flight Ban in Case Russia's Lavrov Wants to Attend Meeting

Skopje (North Macedonia), Nov 24 (AP) NATO member North Macedonia said Friday it would briefly lift a ban on flights from Russia next week, which would enable Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to attend an international conference in the country should he accept the invitation.

A government statement said the window would apply from Nov 29 to Dec 1, when North Macedonia hosts a meeting of foreign ministers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in the capital, Skopje.

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Russia is one of the 57 members of the OSCE, set up during the Cold War to ease East-West tensions, whose rotating chairmanship North Macedonia currently holds. Most European countries banned flights from Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in Feb 2022.

It was not clear whether Lavrov would even accept the invitation which North Macedonia's Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani said last week had been sent to him.

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If so, Friday's government statement said North Macedonia's foreign and defence ministries would need to issue additional permits for the visit.

The statement said the brief flight ban suspension is not unprecedented, "especially when it comes to international conferences”.

In order to reach the small, landlocked Balkan country, the Russian delegation would have to fly through the airspace of other NATO or European Union members, which in turn would need to grant special permission.

With the exception of close Moscow ally Belarus, Lavrov has not visited any European countries since the war in Ukraine started. He has travelled to NATO member Turkey which has no ban on Russian flights, and the US where he attended meetings at the UN headquarters.

In March last year, Lavrov was barred from flying to Geneva for a United Nations conference after European Union members banned Russian planes from their skies as part of bruising sanctions against Moscow.

He denounced the move as “outrageous” in a video address to the UN session, charging that “the EU countries are trying to avoid a candid face-to-face dialogue or direct contacts designed to help identify political solutions to pressing international issues”.

In October, Osmani said that Moscow can expect more diplomatic pressure from the OSCE in coming months during his country's presidency of the organisation, which ends Dec 31. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)