Russia's foreign minister will meet with the head of the world's largest regional security body Wednesday

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

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Russia's foreign minister will meet with the head of the world's largest regional security body Wednesday to discuss the group's reform, the Foreign Ministry said. Russia and some other countries have accused the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe of bias and poor governance. In mid-2004, they called for a sweeping reform of the 55-nation grouping that monitors elections, human rights, and democracy across the world. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's talks with OSCE Secretary General Marc Perrin de Brichambaut will focus on reforms, which "Russia sees as a key to overcoming difficulties facing the organization in recent years," the ministry said. The ministry said the reform should "adapt the OSCE's political agenda to modern challenges and threats, focus its activities on important problems facing all the member countries and help it end thematic and geographic bias." Russia has accused the organization's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of anti-Russian bias, particularly during monitoring elections in post-Soviet countries. And Russia's envoy to the OSCE slammed the organization June 16 as "amorphous," badly run and chaotic. "The OSCE's structures and procedures are not organized and, honestly speaking, this is simply chaos," Alexei Borodavkin said. Russia even reduced its dues to the OSCE from 9 million euros ($11.35mln) to 6 million (about $7.5mln) a year and threatened to cut it further, the decision that it says will be influenced by the pace of reform. On Thursday, the last day of his visit, de Brichambaut will hold meetings in the lower chamber of parliament and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

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