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Henry Meyer
Bloomberg
Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:53 EST

UK & Euro-Asian News

Russia condemned Kosovo's declaration of independence as illegal and warned the U.S. and European Union against creating a "serious precedent'' by recognizing it.

Russia called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council today and backs Serbia's demands for the restoration of its territorial integrity, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its Web site.

Russia, a traditional ally of Serbia with ethnic and religious ties to the fellow-Slav nation, opposes independence for Kosovo. The move could set an example for other separatist regions around the world, including in Russia's U.S.-allied neighbor Georgia. The EU said yesterday it will send 1,900 police officers, judges and customs officials to the mostly ethnic Albanian province of 2 million people.

"Accepting this illegal situation and acknowledging the independence of Kosovo will cause further damage to international law and create a serious precedent,'' President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said by phone from Paris today.

Kosovo's parliament voted 109-0 today to sever ties with Serbia. Soon afterwards, the Georgian separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia said they would ask Russia and the UN to recognize their independence, the Interfax news service reported, citing the leaders of the two rebel provinces.

Both regions broke away from the former Soviet republic during wars in the 1990s and have pro-Russian leaderships and Russian peacekeepers.

Recognition Unlikely

Russian recognition of Abhazia and South Ossetia is unlikely as this would "destabilize Russia's own borders,'' said Masha Lipman, an analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Center. Russia has fought separatists in Chechnya, a mainly Muslim region that borders Georgia.

"The kind of threat from Russia is not clear yet,'' Lipman said by phone. "But a response will follow.''

Putin said Feb. 14 that recognizing Kosovo's independence would be "immoral and illegal'' and Europe should be "ashamed'' of its "double standards'' for seeking to do so.

The Foreign Ministry called on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and United Nations missions in Kosovo to fulfill their mandate by annulling the independence declaration.

Russia has used its status as a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council to block United Nations recognition and has vowed to prevent Kosovo's membership in international organizations.

Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO bombing drove Serbian troops out.

Russia will use the Kosovo situation as a further means of pressure on Georgia's pro-Western leadership, which wants to join NATO and the EU, said former Georgian defense minister Irakli Orkuashvili.

"The Russians will try to establish a precedent, and this might become a blackmailing and bargaining issue with Georgia,'' Orkuashvili, who is now in France seeking asylum, said in an interview in Paris on Feb. 15.

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