The Diplomat
Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares has tested positive for COVID-19 after participating in NATO and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) ministerial meetings this week.
“I have tested positive for COVID-19,” Albares himself announced yesterday via his Twitter account. “I feel fine, with mild symptoms,” he continued. “I’m still working, taking extreme precautions,” he added.
After participating since Tuesday in the first day of the NATO Ministerial Meeting, held in the Romanian capital Bucharest, Albares still had time to attend on Wednesday the first day of the 29th annual ministerial meeting of the OSCE, which took place in the Polish city of Lodz and which addressed “the current international context and in the region, and the challenges facing the organization” and discussed the security situation and the plan of action of member countries for the future, as reported by Albares and the Ministry through the same social network.
“Spain has been part of the OSCE since its origins and continues to strengthen its participation. The war in Ukraine makes this meeting one of the most important. With multilateralism at its core, the OSCE occupies a very relevant place within Spanish foreign policy,” Foreign Affairs added.
Albares was originally scheduled to participate yesterday in the second day of the meeting in Lodz and to travel to Rome today to speak at the VIII Edition of the Mediterranean Dialogues. However, the Minister’s activities did not appear last Wednesday night in the Government Agenda published by Moncloa on the eve of each day. Finally, Albares returned to Madrid on Wednesday night.
On Wednesday, in addition to participating in the second day of the NATO ministerial and the first day of the OSCE, Albares held bilateral meetings with the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and with the Polish Foreign Minister, Zbigniew Rau. He also had time to visit, during his stay in Romania, the Viespe Detachment of the Spanish Air Force, which contributes to the peace, security and defense of NATO’s Eastern Flank.
The minister also held a bilateral meeting that same day with his Uzbek counterpart, Vladimir Norov, on the margins of the OSCE ministerial, to discuss bilateral relations, “which we continue to deepen after the opening of a diplomatic antenna in Tashkent last summer”, and the regional situation, Albares said on Twitter.
