State Department Official: Blinken-Lavrov Meeting not Expected

VoA Macedonian, citing VoA’s State Department correspondent, quoted a senior Department official as saying that they didn’t expect Secretary Antony Blinken to have any meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during the OSCE Ministerial Council in North Macedonia.

“We don’t expect a meeting,” the official confirmed, answering a question about the possibility of any Blinken-Lavrov meeting. Asked about the boycott by Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania due to Lavrov’s presence in Skopje, the senior official stated: “We obviously respect the ability of every country to make a decision on whether it should attend or not.”