Kosovo independence will open up Pandora's box
- Russia's Ivanov
RIA Novosti - February 09, 2007
SEVILLE, February 9 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's defense minister said granting
independence to the Serbian province of Kosovo may set a dangerous precedent,
triggering disintegration of other states across Eurasia.
"This may spark a chain reaction and open up Pandora's box," Sergei Ivanov said
during a meeting with his German counterpart, Franz Josef Jung, in advance of a
Russia-NATO Council meeting in the southern Spanish city of Seville.
Earlier this month, the United Nations mediator on Kosovo's future status,
Martti Ahtisaari, unveiled his Kosovo settlement plan, containing an implicit
proposal to give independence to the predominantly ethnic Albanian region, which
has been a UN protectorate since 1999. Belgrade has rejected the plan, saying it
is willing to grant Kosovo broad autonomy, but that it will never let the
province secede from Serbia.
Ivanov said: "It all depends on how we approach the principle of territorial
integrity. We can approach it from the point of view of the current political
situation, or take territorial integrity as an inviolable principle."
"If hypothetically we suppose Kosovo is given independence, people in other
unrecognized regions will wonder, 'So why not us as well?'"
Officials in Moscow have repeatedly indicated that if Kosovo is granted
sovereignty, the international community should also recognize as independent
the separatist regions in the former Soviet Union, notably Georgia's Abkhazia
and South Ossetia, and Moldova's Transdnestr.
However, Germany's defense minister reiterated his support for Ahtisaari's
Kosovo settlement plan, saying all sides concerned should join forces to push
the plan through the 15-nation UN Security Council before the end of March.
But a senior member of the lower house of Russia's parliament warned on Friday
against rushing the issue.
Konstantin Kosachev, head of the State Duma international affairs committee,
said that Russia, as a veto-wielding member of the Council, may block the plan
if it is put to a vote hastily, without first agreeing it with the sides
directly involved in the conflict.
Speaking after a meeting with Frank Wisner, the U.S. State Secretary's special
representative on Kosovo, the Russian lawmaker said that according to
Washington, further delays in determining the province's status will lead to
economic degradation and new ethnic clashes.
But Kosachev said that the plan should not be considered by the UN Security
Council until "all the sides involved in the conflict accept it."
"So long as there is no acceptance, a hasty vote on the issue at the UN Security
Council will provoke Russia and possibly China to use their veto power, which
will have highly negative implications both for a settlement in Kosovo, and for
the global geopolitical situation as a whole," Kosachev said.
He also said that Ahtisaari's plan contradicts the guiding principles elaborated
by the six-power Contact Group on Kosovo, which, along with Russia, includes the
United States, Britain, France, Italy and Germany.
"One indispensable condition for making progress on Kosovo would be to achieve
standards in the protection of human rights and rights of ethic minorities, with
the rights situation being far from perfect," he said.
Copyright 2007 RIA Novosti
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