BELGRADE (Sputnik), Svetlana Alexandrova — Serbia, which currently holds the OSCE Chairmanship, is organizing the Ministerial Council conference that is scheduled to last for two days. The annual conference provides the foreign ministers of the 57 OSCE participating states with an opportunity to assess the organization's activities during the past year and to work out stances on global security matters.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who leads the Russian delegation, is set to hold bilateral talks on the sidelines of the Ministerial Council conference with his Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic to assess bilateral issues and economic ties in particular.
Lavrov will also meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss recent developments considering Syrian crisis settlement as well as to discuss preparations for working with representatives of the Syrian opposition.
The Russian foreign minister said on Wednesday that he would not refuse to meet his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Belgrade on the margins of the OSCE Ministerial Council. It would be their first meeting since a Russian Su-24 attack aircraft was downed by an air-to-air Turkish missile while carrying out precision strikes against terrorist positions in northern Syria on November 24 for an alleged violation of Turkish airspace. The incident has led to tensions in the countries' bilateral relations.
