“Russia Is Obligated To Protect Kosovo Serbs On The Legal And Socio-Economic Level” – The Russian Ministry Of Foreign Affairs
By Dimitar.Miscevic on Apr 9, 2008 in Featured, Kosovo, Regional, Serbia
It’s been and it had always been Russia’s right to ask about the matter associated with their region, said the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Kosovo notes from the April 2 Duma session released yesterday.
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister stated, “Russia is obligated to protect the Kosovo Serbs on the legal and socio-economic level.” It was his answer, when he was asked in Duma, what were Moscow’s plans to protect the Serbs in the province. He said, “Russia now has the right to ask, as it already has…” He described the status of the Kosovo Serbs was described as “miserable”.
When the Duma deputies asked that they wanted to know what options were on the table, and whether they included a partition – “another Dayton”, that would entail a “creation of a new Serb republic”, Lavrov said, “The minority peoples living in Kosovo, mainly, but not only Serbs, have the full right to express their will in regards to how and where they want to live, and in what capacity will they stay.”
Lavrov said, “It is no accident that the Serb municipalities in Kosovska Mitrovica and other Serb enclaves categorically refuse to cooperate with anyone except KFOR and UNMIK, which had been set up in keeping with UN Security Council Resolution 1244″.
“Forcing them to submit and accept alleged legitimacy of the European Union’s mission is absolutely unacceptable,” said the Russian Foreign Minister. He said that Moscow had been discussing this with EU and UNMIK representatives.
Lavrov said that Russia now has the right to ask, “as it already has”, her Western partners, who had claimed that it is impossible to continue the status negotiations, whether their argument that the Albanians could never again live together with the Serbs may be implemented on the situation inside Kosovo as a principle.
“They don’t know what they are saying,” Lavrov said. He affirmed that the minorities have the full right to their identity, and that this applies not only to Serbia, “including the Kosovo situation”, but also other to countries in the Balkans.