• Thursday, 04 July 2024

Osmani: Ohrid to become center for reconciliation talks

Osmani: Ohrid to become center for reconciliation talks

Skopje, 4 May 2023 (MIA) — The UN Security Council has convened a special session on North Macedonia's OSCE chairpersonship priorities, which is an opportunity for the country to try to create synergy between the OSCE and the UN during its chairpersonship, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani told reporters in an online briefing Thursday.

 

Osmani, who is in New York, said the special session was taking place in extraordinary circumstances.

 

"For the first time, the two bodies responsible for world peace and security are blocked. The Security Council cannot make any decisions. The OSCE has also been blocked as a regional security organization. So, as OSCE chairman, I will call for peace, not wars in our continent, and for the use of the organizations' mechanisms and instruments," he said.

 

Osmani said he and Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski would be going to Washington next, for bilateral meetings with top officials. Also, he said, he would be meeting with EU ambassadors in the US to discuss topic related to OSCE and the EU.

 

He said North Macedonia's functional interethnic democracy, interethnic relations, and diversity were a successful model of integrating various communities and could serve as an example to all conflicting parties.

 

"Hence Ohrid is becoming more and more a center, and an OSCE center soon, I hope, for reconciliation, negotiations and dialogue," the foreign minister said.

 

"After the Kosovo – Serbia dialogue that took place in Ohrid, we have plans for some ministers of foreign affairs from other conflict regions to continue their talks in Ohrid.

 

"So, Ohrid and North Macedonia are already on the map as helpful and successful models – also having the credibility to sit at the table and support reconciliation and conflict prevention in all OSCE regions," Osmani said. mr/