Austria's Kneissl Says Has Few Details On Warsaw Middle East Summit Due To Shutdown In US

Fakhir Rizvi Published January 21, 2019 | 06:04 PM

Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl confirmed on Monday her intention to attend the upcoming international summit on the Middle East, set to be held in Warsaw in mid-February at the US initiative, but noted that Washington has so far failed to provide detailed information about the meeting because of the partial government shutdown

BRUSSELS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st January, 2019) Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl confirmed on Monday her intention to attend the upcoming international summit on the middle East, set to be held in Warsaw in mid-February at the US initiative, but noted that Washington has so far failed to provide detailed information about the meeting because of the partial government shutdown.

Earlier in January, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States would hold an international summit in Poland on February 13-14 to discuss cooperation on achieving stability and security in the Middle East.

"Until now we don't dispose of all the details: what will be the exact agenda [of the summit], who has how much speaking time but we hope that despite the shutdown we can still get hold of somebody to [provide the participants with such information] ... It's on my agenda but given the governmental shutdown in Washington it's not easy to get the information," the minister told reporters upon her arrival at the EU ministerial meeting in Brussels, when asked whether she would attend the conference in Warsaw.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia had been invited to attend the summit in the Polish capital but Moscow doubted whether the meeting would help the international community deal with problems in the region.

Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz, in turn, said that Russia refused to participate in the event, adding that he did not expect any visible progress to be made at the summit either.

The partial government shutdown in the United States was caused by a standoff between US President Donald Trump and Democrats over their refusal to allocate $5.7 billion in government funds to build a wall along the US border with Mexico, which was one of Trump's main campaign pledges. Hundreds of thousands of Federal workers were furloughed due to the shutdown.

As of Monday, the longest shutdown in the US history entered its 31st day, surpassing the previous "record" by 10 days.