The head of Portuguese diplomacy defended this Thursday in Skopje that peace “is the exclusive responsibility” of Russia, through the withdrawal from the occupied territories in Ukraine, a message that he transmitted to his Russian counterpart, in which he saw a “lack of conviction “.
Portugal’s position was conveyed in a speech by João Gomes Cravinho at the meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), in Skopje, North Macedonia, attended by the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov and, in what the Portuguese ruler considered, Russia was “completely isolated, with only the small stick of Belarus.”
“I conveyed to him, first of all, that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was the sole responsibility of Russia, and that what Russia has offered as justification does not hold water, and being the sole responsibility of Russia, peace was also the sole responsibility of Russia, specifically through what is an obvious demand: the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine,” the minister commented in statements to Lusa, at the end of the first of the two-day OSCE meeting.
During the meeting, the future of the organization, with 57 members, was discussed when “evidently, today there is a situation in which security and cooperation in Europe have been frankly destroyed by Russia’s actions.”
Poland and the three Baltic countries, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia boycotted the meeting, given Lavrov’s presence, but were represented at ambassadorial level.
When asked if he had found any opening on the part of the Russian ruler, João Gomes Cravinho responded that he had not, but that he had found “some weakness.”
“Time will help, because I believe that this Russia will not be like this forever. What I felt was a certain weakness on the part of [do ministro Lavrov], of lack of conviction. He is a person with enormous political and diplomatic experience (…) What I saw today was a person with extremely weak arguments and little ability to impose his ideas. This made me think, because, in fact, the future of Russia cannot go through these types of completely weak arguments based on falsehoods,” Gomes Cravinho said.
The military offensive launched on February 24, 2022 by Russia in Ukraine caused, according to the most recent UN data, the worst refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War (1939-1945).
The Russian invasion – justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security – was condemned by most of the international community, which has responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing duties on Russia. political and economic. sanctions.
Source: TSF
