BELGRADE, December 2. /TASS/. The West is fomenting a new crisis in Kosovo and Metohija, catering to the interests of the leadership of the unrecognized entity in Pristina, Russia’s ambassador to Serbia, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, said on Friday.
"To put it bluntly, we are not at all surprised by the arbitrary decisions of Kosovo’s ‘prime minister’ [Albin] Kurti to appoint Serbs loyal to him to ministerial posts. Just as we didn’t expect a negative reaction from the EU. Everything is predictable, as we had anticipated. The West, having slightly muffled one crisis, gives Pristina an opportunity to foment tensions again, while the aim of Kosovo’s Albanians remains the same - to create unbearable conditions for the Serbs in the province and to force them to abandon their homes," the embassy’s press-service quotes Botsan-Kharchenko as saying.
"The reaction of Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic and other leaders is decent and reasonable and fits in with the legal framework. Only Belgrade adheres to the Brussels agreements," the Russian ambassador stressed.
Botsan-Kharchenko sharply condemned anti-Russian statements by unrecognized Kosovo’s prime minister, Albin Kurti on the US TV channel N1: "We react with indignation to slanderous statements by the Kosovo ‘premier’ Kurti on N1 that are insulting to both Serbia and Russia," he said.
Earlier, Pristina appointed to the government posts vacated after the Serbs left the government, politicians who had won less than 2% of the Serbs' votes in the latest elections in Kosovo and Metohija. Nenad Rasic was appointed Minister of Ethnic Communities in the government instead of the leader of Kosovo’s Serbs, Goran Rakic, who had resigned. The EU’s reaction to Pristina's actions was sluggish, which outraged the Serbian leadership.
Vucic described the situation in Kosovo and Metohija as very difficult, noting that it is "literally at a boiling point". On November 5, Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija quit all institutions of power of the unrecognized territorial entity. Their walkout was in protest of the Kosovo authorities’ decision to fine everyone who had not changed their Serbian car plates to Kosovo’s starting from November 22. On November 23, after US exerted pressure on Kurti, the policy of fines for Serbian license plates was canceled.