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Lavrov to attend joint session of Russian, Belarusian Frgn Ministries’ collegiums

Russian Foreign Minister will have a meeting with President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus

MINSK, October 30 (Itar-Tass) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is due to visit the Belarusian capital Minsk Tuesday where he will attend a joint session of collegiums of the Russian and Belarusian Foreign Ministries.

Under the administrative system accepted in Russia and a number of other former Soviet republics, collegiums are the highest decision-making and advisory bodies at ministries and governmental departments.

Also, he will have a meeting with President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and will hold tete-a-tete talks with Belarus’s Foreign Minister Vladimir Makey.

Alexander Lukashevich, an official spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said the two sides plan holding a detailed discussion of their cooperative efforts in the framework of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe /OSCE/ in the wake of a forthcoming meeting of its ministerial council, due in Dublin December 6 and December 7.

“Besides, the Russian and Belarusian officials will look at the prospects for cooperation in the format of the UN in the field of human rights, the counteraction to falsifications of history and other issues of mutual interest,” Lukashevich said

He recalled that the collegiums of the Russian and Belarusian Foreign Ministries hold joint sessions on an annual basis.

“This format of collaboration makes it possible to consider the current international events in depth and to work out coordinated approaches to the international agenda,” Lukashevich said.

A high-ranking source at the Belarusian Foreign Ministry told Itar-Tass in the meantime “Sergei Lavrov and Vladimir Makey plan discussing the problems of Belarusian-Russian cooperation, including a program of coordinated actions on the part of Russia-Belarus Union State in foreign policy in 2012 and 2013.”

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