FILE PHOTO: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks during a joint press conference with Venezuela's Foreign Minister Yvan Gil Pinto in Moscow, Russia, November 16, 2023. Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's foreign ministry said on Wednesday it had received a lot of requests for one-on-one meetings with Sergei Lavrov, Moscow's top diplomat, on the sidelines of an OSCE meeting in North Macedonia.
Lavrov is expected to attend the meeting of foreign ministers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which takes place from Nov. 30 to Dec. 1.
"I can confirm that there are a lot of requests for bilateral meetings," Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, told reporters.
"There will be multilateral meetings in multilateral formats, and bilateral meetings are planned as well," she said.
She said that the foreign ministry will provide details on Lavrov's schedule in Skopje later.
Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania on Tuesday said their foreign ministers would boycott the meeting because of Lavrov's planned attendance.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
