Zbigniew Rau will make the visits in his capacity as Chairperson-in-Office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which Poland is presiding over in 2022, the state PAP news agency reported.
Łukasz Jasina, the spokesman for Poland’s Foreign Ministry, told PAP that the foreign minister would first visit Ukraine, in late January or early February, “to meet the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.”
Rau will also visit areas near the frontline in Eastern Ukraine, where the OSCE’s special monitoring mission is active, Jasina added.
Immediately afterwards, Poland’s top diplomat will head to Washington for talks with the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the foreign ministry spokesman said.
Next, in mid-February, Rau will meet the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.
“The visit to Moscow is standard procedure for the chairman of the OSCE, in which Russia is one of the key participating states,” Jasina said.
He added that Rau’s conversation with Blinken would focus on “security, defending Europe against aggression, on international law and the events in Ukraine.”
Asked if the talks would also touch upon the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, the foreign ministry spokesman replied that “each of the topics of importance to Poland and the United States may be raised during this visit.”
Diplomatic efforts
On Thursday, Rau outlined Poland's priorities for its turn at the helm of the OSCE.
“It seems that the risk of war in the OSCE area is now greater than ever before in the last 30 years,” he told a session of the OSCE’s Permanent Council in Vienna.
The Polish foreign minister’s words came in the wake of rising tensions over Ukraine, with Russia massing troops near the former Soviet republic’s border and demanding that NATO not admit Kyiv or expand eastward, PAP reported.
Earlier this week, talks between Russia and the United States in Geneva and between Russia and NATO in Brussels did not produce progress on the Ukraine crisis and European security, the Reuters news agency reported.
At a news conference following the OSCE session, Poland’s top diplomat said that the talks in Vienna failed to deliver a breakthrough, either, and called for “real dialogue” on the Ukraine crisis, Reuters reported.
(pm)
Source: PAP, Reuters