Moscow praises the formation of the Kosovo Serb assembly
The Kosovo Serb assembly is a logical reaction to the illegal unilateral declaration of independence of the province, Russia says.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Wednesday, July 02, 2008
A Foreign Ministry statement issued in Moscow today added that non-Albanian communities in Kosovo have the right to refuse to recognize the "quasi-state proclaimed by Pristina".
"The constitution of the assembly as a body reprsenting the Serb community is a logical reaction to the illegal and unilateral declaration of independence of the region and is a reflection of prevailing sentiments among Serbs to resist their forceful integration into the illegal entity of the Kosovo Albanians", the release said.
"Some states have already hurriedly described the constitution of the Serb assembly as illegal, thus demonstrating their biased attitude towards developments in Kosovo," the Russian Foreign Ministry statement concluded.
In a separate statement, the ministry carried the words of the Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, who said on Tuesday that the unilateral declaration of Kosovo independence has created the most dangerous precedent of bypassing the fundamental principles of the Helsinki Final Act.
Opening the annual conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Vienna, Grushko noted that it is not too late to return the Kosovo issue to a legal framework, and warned that differences in approaches to resolving frozen conflicts entail a danger of turning them into hot ones.
One of the lessons of the Kosovo issue is that clear and system-based principles must be defined for resolving conflicts, that should be respected by all OSCE member-states and that should be applied to all conflicts in all areas OSCE covers, he said.
He also expressed Russia's concern over the attempts at using the global security excuse to uphold scenarios for using or threatening to use force without UN Security Council approval, the release said.
