Russia warned on Monday that Kosovo could slip into ”uncontrollable crisis,” ahead of a United Nations Security Council showdown over the Serbian province’s Western-backed push for independence.
Throwing down the gauntlet, the Foreign Ministry warned in a statement that the ”indulgence” of some countries in allowing Kosovo to move towards independence could have ”serious negative consequences” for stability.
”The situation is threatening to slip towards an uncontrollable crisis if international law is not upheld” and any decision on the future status of Kosovo must only be taken within the UN Security Council, the ministry said.
Eighteen months of internationally mediated talks on Kosovo’s future status ended in failure on December 10.
Serbia, backed by Russia, has demanded further negotiations, but the leaders of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority say the process has been exhausted and insist they will make a unilateral declaration of independence within weeks.
Belgrade is staunchly opposed to independence, insisting the province is a historic Serbian heartland, but a core group of European countries and Washington are prepared to recognise a breakaway Kosovo.
EU leaders decided on December 14 to deploy about 1 800 police and prosecutors to Kosovo to help oversee any transition, while at the same time offering the carrot of ”accelerated” EU entry to Belgrade.
Russia’s diplomatic envoy for Kosovo, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, warned on Monday that the police mission would be illegal without UN approval.
”It needs a legal basis. … There needs to be a decision by the Security Council to change the international presence” Botsan-Kharchenko, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying.
Kosovo has been administered by the UN since Nato bombed Serbia in 1999 to end a crackdown on separatist ethnic-Albanians, and the province’s Albanian majority has been impatient for independence ever since.
The UN Security Council is to hold a crucial meeting on Wednesday to discuss the implications of a report by United States, EU and Russian mediators on the failure of the last round of negotiations between Pristina and Belgrade.
The Serbian delegation at the closed-door meeting will be lead by Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica who reiterated the demand for further negotiations before he left Monday for New York.
”We can negotiate [further], and we are ready for a compromise, but Serbia has to remain in its entirety,” Kostunica was quoted as saying by Tanjug news agency.
Warning against any ”one-sided act to create a puppet” state on Serbian soil, Kostunica said independence would violate Serbia’s new Constitution.
The Constitution, which stresses that Kosovo is an ”integral” part of Serbia, was narrowly approved at an October 2006 referendum in which Belgrade barred the participation of Kosovo Albanian voters.
Kosovo Albanians will be represented at the UN talks by prime minister-designate Hashim Thaci and President Fatmir Sejdiu, who will be the first to address the UN body in his role.
”I will ask for the overall support of UN Security Council member states and other states in bilateral meetings that we will have,” Sejdiu said on Sunday.
”It is good that I will speak on behalf of Kosovo, its people and institutions, about everything that we have achieved so far and about our vision for the future of Kosovo,” the Pristina daily Zeri cited him as saying. – AFP
