Work on Russia's exclusion from BSEC ongoing – Ukraine's envoy

Roman Nedilskyi, Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the BSEC, said this in a post on Facebook following a meeting of the BSEC Committee of Senior Officials, according to Ukrinform.

"The first meeting of the Committee of Senior Officials in the past three-and-a-half years ended at the BSEC headquarters in Istanbul. It was held not in online mode. Our main achievement, the achievement of Ukraine and the entire civilized world, is that the occupying state is as isolated as possible and the aggressor will not chair the BSEC, no matter how it should be in accordance with the established procedure. We are working on Russia's exclusion from BSEC," Nedilskyi wrote.

He said that since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022, Ukraine had immediately notified the BSEC Secretariat regarding the expulsion of Russia from the organization for violation of the Charter. "I will say right away that there are no legal mechanisms in the organization's Charter for excluding one of the member states, and changes to the Charter can only be made by consensus, that is, with the support of all member states," the diplomat said.

He recalled that the presidency of the BSEC takes place in alphabetical order and changes every six months. "From July 1, 2022, Russia was supposed to take over the chairmanship of the organization. Again, there are no legal mechanisms to change the order of chairmanship. But we managed to prevent them from presiding and Moldova continued to lead the work of the organization for a further six months," Nedilskyi said.

According to him, during the second half of 2022, the Russians declared their intentions and right to chair the organization from January 1, 2023, but Turkey will be presiding within the next six months, and from January 1, 2024, a new cycle of chairmanship in alphabetical order begins with Albania. Thus, Russia will not preside over the BSEC for several years in a row.

Photo credit: Roman Nedilskyi / Facebook