German Helga Maria Schmidt will continue to lead the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for the time being - as Russia has accepted a compromise.
On Friday, 57 member states of the organization voted for the extension of the mandate of Helga Šmit as Secretary General for another nine months, announced the Minister of Foreign Affairs of North Macedonia and the Chairman of the OSCE, Bujar Osmani.
This concluded the two-day OSCE ministerial meeting in Skopje.
Also, the mandates of three representatives of the organization - for minorities, democracy and human rights - are being extended for nine months. The team leading the OSCE was elected for a three-year term at the beginning of December 2020.
Moscow, which has blocked many decisions since the beginning of the aggression against Ukraine, resisted the extension of the mandate until almost the last moment.
Before serving in the OSCE, Helga Schmidt was the Secretary General of the European Union's Foreign Affairs Service. She led the negotiations on the nuclear agreement with Iran that was concluded in 2015.
Bonus video:
