LONDON, February 8. /TASS/. The UK and other Western countries are ignoring the treat that forming the army in self-proclaimed Kosovo will create for the territory's Serbian population, the Russian Embassy in London said in a statement released on Friday.
"We would want to remind once again that the prospect of creating the so-called 'Kosovo army' presents a direct threat to Serbians residing in the territory's north and this drastically increases the potential for emergence of a new source of tensions in the Balkans. It is suprising that Western representatives persistently ignore this obvious fact that was mentioned, for instance, in the last half-year report by the head of the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] mission in Pristina," the embassy said adding that EU efforts at mediating failed. "Instead of adhering to voluntarily assumed commitments on normalizing the situation in the region, they [EU member-states] are in reality turning a blind eye to flagrant violations of international law," the embassy added.
"As we noted earlier, Pristina's decision to transform Kosovo's security forces into full-fledged 'armed forces' represents a flagrant violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 which allows only for multinational contingents under international control to be present on this territory. At the same, the decision runs counter to Kosovo's 'constitution'," the Russian Embassy noted. "We regularly draw attention of representatives of countries of the Western bloc at different platforms to this outrageous fact, but certain supporters of Kosovo's independence refute our arguments under various pretexts. The British, in particular, insist on some special 'legal interpretation' of the aforementioned resolution which seems to align very well with their own concept of 'rules-based order'," the embassy said.