Putin Seeks Balkan Border Pact, Slams UN Kosovo Plan

25/03/2001| IslamWeb

[Putin and Kustinica discuss renewed tension in the volatile Balkans region. Read photo caption below.]

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned Western policy in Kosovo and Macedonia during a visit to Yugoslavia Sunday and called for an agreement to reaffirm borders in the volatile Balkans.
Putin, speaking to Russian reporters during a surprise trip to the troubled Yugoslav province of Kosovo, said it would be ''extremely dangerous and destructive'' to discuss any possibility of redrawing borders.
``If an end is not put to this, we will never complete the process of settling the situation in the region,'' he was quoted as saying by Russia's Interfax news agency.
Putin earlier told Russian commanders in the Yugoslav province his initiative aimed at promoting a comprehensive settlement to ethnic strife in the region.
``We are laying down this particular principle as the basis of a Russian initiative....which will ensure strict observation of generally accepted basic principles of inter-state relations -- first of all mutual recognition of sovereignty and territorial integrity,'' Interfax quoted him as saying.
He and Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica had earlier described Kosovo as the main source of instability in the Balkans.
The initiative is likely to infuriate Kosovo's independence-minded Albanians, who hope that the international community, which made the province a U.N. protectorate in 1999 after 11 weeks of NATO air strikes, will eventually agree.
RUSSIA CRITICIZES U.N. KOSOVO PLAN
Putin also criticized a plan for self-government in Kosovo, saying it was approved ``in circumvention'' of the U.N. Security Council and that it had a number of significant drawbacks.
``Too many concessions have been made to radicals,'' Putin said about the blueprint unveiled by the U.N.'s Kosovo governor Hans Haekkerup last month which paves the way for province-wide elections on November 17.
``The legal framework of future self-government is raised almost to the standard of constitution,'' he said.
Putin flew to Kosovo from Belgrade, where he had met Kostunica, who has also sharply criticized the U.N. plan.
Putin, the first Russian president to visit post-communist Yugoslavia, said in Belgrade it needed help from the entire international community and that Russians, who share Orthodox Slav roots with the Serbs, were ready to play a part.
``Stability in the region is seriously threatened, above all from national religious extremism and intolerance, the main source of which today is in Kosovo,'' he said.
Both leaders urged the international community to work to disarm Albanian ``terrorists,'' referring to attacks on Kosovo's dwindling Serb population and gunmen in neighboring Macedonia.
Albanian guerrillas with backing from Kosovo began operating in Macedonia earlier this year, bringing the majority Orthodox Slav country to the brink of civil war.
NATO has tightened its control of the Kosovo-Macedonia border to try to stop weapons and men crossing, and Western leaders are pressing its Slav and ethnic Albanian leaders to agree to constitutional changes to address the minority's concerns.
Putin said the ``Kosovo scenario'' was being repeated in Macedonia. ``The situation in Macedonia is developing into a very difficult scenario. The leadership of the country is under serious pressure to force it to meet the demands of extremists.''
In Kosovo, Putin held talks with the Haekkerup and a visiting delegation of ambassadors of the 15-member U.N. Security Council as well as the head of the peacekeepers, Norwegian General Thorstein Skiaker.
Russia has some 3,000 troops in a force of about 40,000 peacekeepers who replaced Yugoslav forces in Kosovo after the NATO air strikes to stop Belgrade's repression of the province's ethnic Albanians.
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PHOTO CAPTION

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica addresses reporters after talks in Belgrade June 17, 2001. Putin is in Belgrade for landmark talks with Kostunica at a time of renewed tension in the volatile Balkans. (Viktor Korotayev/Reuters)
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