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More than 40 foreign ministers expected at OSCE conference in Belgrade

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected to meet with his Turkish counterpart

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, right, inspects the honour guard AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, right, inspects the honour guard

© AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic

BELGRADE, December 3. /TASS/. Belgrade becomes a diplomatic capital of the world for the coming two days, Serbia’s Foreign Minister and Chairman-in-Person of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Ivica Dacic said on the eve of opening of the 22nd Council of Foreign Ministers of the organization.

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Russia FM ready to meet with Turkish counterpart in Belgrade

Serbia is hosting the conference as the country holding the OSCE presidency this year. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry will take part in the council’s session and are expected to hold a separate meeting on its sidelines.

Lavrov said on Wednesday he would not evade a meeting with his Turkish opposite number, Mevlut Cavusoglu.

"We won’t evade this contact," he said at a news briefing in Nicosia prior to the trip in Belgrade. "Let’s listen to Mr. Cavusoglu, maybe he’ll tell us something new compared with what was said in public."

All in all, the conference will be attended by delegations of 57 member-states of the OSCE and eleven partner states. Ivica Dacic said on Wednesday at a joint briefing with Sergei Lavrov at Belgrade airport the session of the Foreign Ministers Council was the largest political event in Belgrade since the summit of the nonaligned countries in 1989.

He said it was a great honor for Serbia to host so many ministers at a time. In the light of it, he expressed the hope everything that had been planned at the organizational level would be fulfilled.

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