MOSCOW (Agencies)
Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a sharp warning to the West about the consequences of recognizing Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence, describing the move as a "terrible precedent" that will come back to hit the West "in the face."
"The precedent of Kosovo is a terrible precedent, which will de facto blow apart the whole system of international relations, developed not over decades, but over centuries," Putin told a Moscow meeting of regional leaders on Friday.
"They have not thought through the results of what they are doing. At the end of the day it is a two-ended stick and the second end will come back and hit them in the face," Putin said, in comments later broadcast on state television.
The comments came as Moscow ratcheted up its condemnation of Western powers' support for the province's secession from Serbia, with a Russian envoy warning NATO and the European Union against "brute force" in Kosovo.
Russia has vehemently opposed Kosovo's independence declaration, reflecting Moscow's historical ties with Orthodox Christian Serbia, which continues to claim Kosovo as a Serbian province.
In recent weeks Russian officials have suggested that Kosovo's declaration could boost the independence claims of separatist regions in Western Europe.
Since Kosovo's ethnic-Albanian majority declared independence on Sunday, Russia has used its position as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to try to get the body to declare the move null and void.
But with Western powers backing Kosovo's move, Moscow has taken to supporting Serbia with a string of verbal broadsides and veiled threats.
Russia's newly-appointed representative to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said Friday that support for Kosovo from the European Union or NATO would in turn give Russia the right to use its own "brute force" in future scenarios.
"If the European Union works out a common position, or if NATO breaches its mandate in Kosovo, these organizations will be in conflict with the United Nations," Rogozin was quoted as saying in a video link-up from Brussels.
"We too would then have to proceed from the view that in order to be respected we must use brute force, in other words armed force," Rogozin said, Interfax news agency reported. |
