Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov takes part in an annual meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in North Macedonia on Thursday.
The 30th OSCE Ministerial Council is taking place in Skopje from November 30 to December 1 at the invitation of North Macedonian Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani, who is the OSCE's current chairman-in-office. The top diplomats will be discussing the security situation in the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian areas, as well as OSCE organizational matters.
Lavrov's plane had to fly to Skopje over the airspace of Greece as Bulgaria, which had granted permission for the aircraft to fly over its airspace to North Macedonia for the meeting, has refused the overflight since the initial approval did not apply to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who was on board.
Zakharova said the decision of Bulgarian authorities to "ban not a plane from the sky but a person in the plane" was illegal under the Convention on International Civil Aviation of 1944, also known as the Chicago Convention.
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