FOREIGN Minister Miroslav Lajčák met with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington on March 20 to discuss the situation in Ukraine. Kerry also briefed his counterpart on US sanctions against Russia that were approved earlier that day.
“They informed me about [the sanctions],” Lajčák said, as quoted by the TASR newswire. It was later revealed that another 20 individuals and Russia’s Rossiya bank will be sanctioned, TASR wrote.
Lajčák and Kerry also discussed the need to send the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) mission to Ukraine in order to make sure the information on whatever is going on there is objective. Kerry also enquired about the issue of a reverse gas flow through Slovakia to Ukraine.
In addition, the two politicians talked about the EU-US summit that will take place in Brussels next week, and the NATO summit scheduled for September, with Lajčák lending support to the so-called ‘open door policy’, which means further enlargement of the alliance. A serious candidate for joining NATO at the moment is Georgia.
Lajčák then invited Kerry and US Vice-President Joe Biden to visit Slovakia. Previously, Biden also received an invitation from Prime Minister Robert Fico during his November visit in the White House. He accepted, but the date for the visit has not been set yet.
Lajčák said that Kerry may attend the annual international security conference Globsec in Bratislava in mid-May, celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising (SNP) on August 29, or a Visegrad Group (Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary) event, which will be presided over by Slovakia as of July.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
