SKOPJE, December 1. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that all three dimensions of security under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have utterly failed.
"We can see a complete degradation of everything that has been created earlier at the OSCE and as part of previous meetings on security and cooperation in Europe; a degradation of everything that has been created through all three security dimensions - the political and military, the economic and environmental, and the human," Lavrov said at a news conference following his participation in a meeting of the OSCE Foreign Ministerial Council.
The top Russian diplomat pointed to failures in the political and military area, "including the refusal to ratify an adjusted treaty on conventional forces in Europe." "Numerous other agreements that helped to maintain a balanced security sphere have also been demolished," Lavrov lamented. "Everything has been destroyed in the economic sphere, as well. <…> The second basket <…> has been ruined by the unprecedented sanctions that the European Union and the United States have imposed on Russia," he added.
On Thursday, Lavrov addressed the plenary meeting of the OSCE Foreign Ministers’ Council in Skopje, North Macedonia, and held a number of bilateral meetings as well as trilateral talks with his North Macedonian counterpart, Bujar Osmani, and Maltese Foreign Minister Ian Borg, who represent the incumbent and future chairs of the OSCE, respectively.