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West using Brussels agreements on Kosovo to drag time — Russian ambassador

In an interview with the German national weekly Die Zeit published on December 7, German ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel described the conclusion of the Minsk agreements in 2014 as an attempt to give Ukraine the time to get stronger

BELGRADE, December 9. /TASS/. The West is using the Brussels agreements on Kosovo to drag time, like it did with the Minsk agreements, and it cares little about their implementation, Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said on Friday.

"Naturally, the West cares little about the implementation of what has been agreed with its mediation as its goals are opposite to the tasks of the settlement. What matters most for the West is to give time to the side it paternalizes. Now, it has been openly admitted in respect of the Minsk agreements. It won’t be a surprise is the same deplorable fate is awaiting the Brussels agreements, Pristina and the European Union want to leave only on paper," the embassy’s press service quoted the ambassador as saying.

In an interview with the German national weekly Die Zeit published on December 7, German ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel described the conclusion of the Minsk agreements in 2014 as an attempt to give Ukraine the time to get stronger. She argued that it was clear to everyone that the conflict was stalled and the problem had not been resolved, "but this was what gave Ukraine invaluable time." She expressed doubt as to whether NATO countries would have been able to provide support to Kiev at that time to the same extent that they were doing now.

Under the April 19, 2013 Brussels agreements on the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina, a Community of Serb Municipalities, a self-government body of the Serbs living in Kosovo, are to be established in the unrecognized republic. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has repeatedly said that his country has implemented its part of the Brussels agreements whereas the Kosovars only started to draft the Community’s charter and then suspended the process.

Military operation in Ukraine

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FACTBOX: Collective Security Treaty Organization

The Collective Security Treaty came into force on April 20, 1994 to herald the emergence what would eventually become the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The six member-countries are Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan

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Top stories from the Russian press on Friday, April 19th

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Russia has significant amount of West’s funds in case of confiscation of its assets

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Air defenses repel Ukrainian drone attack in Russia’s Smolensk Region — governor

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