Finland will not join Ukraine and the Baltic states in boycotting the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) foreign ministers' meeting in North Macedonia this week.
The Ukrainian and Baltic foreign ministers announced on Tuesday that they would not participate in the meeting as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was planning to attend.
Speaking to reporters at a Nato conference in Brussels on Wednesday, Finland's Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen (NCP) said that the OSCE was established 50 years ago in Helsinki as a forum for East and West to meet during the cold war, and that it was not a place only for like-minded states.
She did emphasise that Finland won't refrain from criticising Russia's aggression against Ukraine at the meeting, or the fact that Russia abuses its veto rights in OSCE decision-making.
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