The Diplomat
Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares participated in New York in an extraordinary meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) in which the “latest escalation by Russia of its illegal, unprovoked and unjustified aggression against Ukraine” was condemned “in the strongest possible terms.”
“At today’s extraordinary FAC meeting in New York, we have addressed Russia’s escalation of its aggression against Ukraine,” the minister said via his official Twitter account. “We 27 member states have reaffirmed European unity in the face of this challenge,” he added. The extraordinary FAC was held on Wednesday night to Thursday (Spanish time) in the US city on the margins of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly.
At the end of the meeting, EU High Representative Josep Borrell made a statement on behalf of the European Union in which he condemned “in the strongest possible terms Russia’s latest escalation of its illegal, unprovoked and unjustified aggression against Ukraine” and denounced that, “despite numerous calls by the international community for Russia to immediately end its military aggression against Ukraine, the Russian leadership has regrettably decided otherwise.”
“On September 21, Russia chose a confrontational path by announcing a partial mobilization in Russia, by supporting the organization of illegal ‘referendums’ in the Ukrainian territories currently occupied by Russia, and by threatening again the use of weapons of mass destruction,” he added. Therefore, “the EU reiterates its call on Russia to respect the principles of the UN Charter and reverse these illegal plans”, the statement added.
Meeting with Ibero-American foreign ministers
Apart from the extraordinary CAE, Borrell participated yesterday, also in the margins of the General Assembly, in a breakfast with the Ibero-American foreign ministers at the United Nations headquarters, to whom he conveyed that “Spain will put Latin America at the center” of the Presidency of the EU and works “for the success of the Ibero-American Summit in Santo Domingo”. As reported by SEGIB in a press release, the ministers of the 22 Ibero-American countries met to prepare the next XXVIII Ibero-American Summit, to be held next March in the Dominican Republic, according to SEGIB in a press release. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Dominican Republic, Roberto Álvarez, representing the Pro-Tempore Secretariat of the Ibero-American Conference, reported on the progress made and the Ibero-American Secretary General, Andrés Allamand, presented the results of SEGIB’s management in recent months.
The Minister then met with the Under-Secretaries-General of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Office, Vladimir Voronkov, and of UN peace operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, and with the High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations, former Spanish Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos. “Spain is committed to the UN and multilateralism, the maintenance of world peace and security and the fight against terrorism and support for victims,” Albares stated.
Albares also participated in the meeting of the Group of Friends of Victims of Terrorism at the Cervantes Institute in New York; in the ministerial meeting of donor countries of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) at UN headquarters; and in the Summit on Information and Democracy at the Consulate General of France in New York. He also attended the dinner hosted by the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, at the Lotte Palace Hotel in New York, and accompanied the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, during his speech at the 77th General Assembly of the United Nations.
