Russia’s Lavrov Declares at Security Talks That His Country’s Goals in Ukraine Are Unchanged

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov holds a press conference on the sidelines of a two-day conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Skopje on December 1, 2023. (AFP)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov holds a press conference on the sidelines of a two-day conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Skopje on December 1, 2023. (AFP)
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Russia’s Lavrov Declares at Security Talks That His Country’s Goals in Ukraine Are Unchanged

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov holds a press conference on the sidelines of a two-day conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Skopje on December 1, 2023. (AFP)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov holds a press conference on the sidelines of a two-day conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Skopje on December 1, 2023. (AFP)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov delivered a blunt message to Western leaders Friday and declared at an international security conference that his government was not prepared to “review its goals” in Ukraine.

“We aren’t seeing any signals from Kyiv or its masters about their readiness to seek any kind of political settlement,” Lavrov told reporters while attending an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe conference in North Macedonia.

“We see no reason to review our goals,” he said.

North Macedonia, which joined NATO in 2020, waived a flight ban on Russian officials so Lavrov could attend the two-day meeting of the OSCE's Ministerial Council, prompting the top diplomats of Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to skip the event in protest.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a brief stop in North Macedonia’s capital, Skopje, before Lavrov arrived.

Participants at the meeting accused Moscow of undermining the OSCE with its war in Ukraine. The Vienna, Austria-based organization, originally created to ease Cold War tensions, includes 57 member countries from North America, Europe and the former Soviet Union.

“It is Russia that is waging an unprovoked and unlawful war against Ukraine, and it is Russia that is obstructing the OSCE agenda,” Ambassador Katrina Kaktina, Latvia’s representative to the organization, said Friday.

“Russia is continuing violations of human rights: deliberate killings of civilians, including children, forced deportations, tactics of torture and sexual violence. Those are war crimes being committed by Russia in Ukraine,” she charged.

Lavrov held several bilateral meetings while in Skopje, including talks with the foreign ministers of meeting host North Macedonia, Armenia and Hungary, which has maintained close ties with Moscow despite European Union sanctions on Russia.

He later accused diplomats from other Western countries of showing cowardice by refusing to meet with him.

“They probably want to emphasize their intention to isolate Russia but I think they just chickened out,” Lavrov said during a Friday news conference that lasted over an hour.

“They’re afraid of any honest conversation,” he said. “It’s cowardice, simple cowardice.”

At the close of the OSCE meeting, North Macedonia said it had overcome Russian objections that had threatened to stall the organization's activities.

Participants voted to pass the OSCE's rotating presidency from North Macedonia to Malta, sidestepping objections from Moscow which had blocked an earlier bid by Estonia. Malta will assume the presidency on Jan. 1.

“Let me break the news that the OSCE is saved. We have saved the organization and its functionality,” North Macedonia’s foreign minister, Bujar Osmani, said.

OSCE Secretary-General Helga Schmid also had her term extended for nine months, along with two other senior executives at the organization. A third executive was newly appointed, also for a nine-month term.



Trump Picks Massad Boulos to Serve as Adviser on Arab, Middle Eastern Affairs

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump signs autographs alongside Massad Boulos (The AP)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump signs autographs alongside Massad Boulos (The AP)
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Trump Picks Massad Boulos to Serve as Adviser on Arab, Middle Eastern Affairs

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump signs autographs alongside Massad Boulos (The AP)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump signs autographs alongside Massad Boulos (The AP)

US President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday said Lebanese American businessman Massad Boulos would serve as senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.

Trump made the announcement on Truth Social. Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump's daughter Tiffany, met repeatedly with Arab American and Muslim leaders during the election campaign, Reuters reported.

It was the second time in recent days that Trump chose the father-in-law of one of his children to serve in his administration.

On Saturday, Trump said that he had picked his son-in-law Jared Kushner's father, real estate mogul Charles Kushner, to serve as US ambassador to France.

In recent months, Boulos campaigned for Trump to drum up Lebanese and Arab American support, even as the US-backed Israel's military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Boulos has powerful roots in both countries.

His father and grandfather were both figures in Lebanese politics and his father-in-law was a key funder of the Free Patriotic Movement, a Christian party aligned with Hezbollah.

His son Michael and Tiffany Trump were married in an elaborate ceremony at Trump's Florida Mar-a-Lago Club in November 2022, after getting engaged in the White House Rose Garden during Trump's first term.

Boulos has been in touch with interlocutors across Lebanon's multipolar political world, three sources who spoke to him in recent months say, a rare feat in Lebanon, where decades-old rivalries between factions run deep.

Boulos is a friend of Suleiman Frangieh, a Christian ally of Hezbollah and its candidate for Lebanon's presidency. He is also in touch with the Lebanese Forces Party, a vehemently anti-Hezbollah Christian faction, the sources say, and has ties to independent lawmakers.