BELGRADE, March 17. /TASS/. The West is obsessed with the idea of its own superiority and is forcing the entire world to make a "with-us-or-against-us" choice, Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said on Friday in reply to Serbian Economy Minister Rade Basta’s question about the 1992 vote on sanctions against the former Yugoslavia.
On his account on Instagram (prohibited in Russia as belonging to the Meta corporation, which has been deemed extremist in Russia) on March 16, the Serbian minister posted a question addressed to the Russian ambassador reading: "Why did Russia vote at the UN in 1992 to impose sanctions on our country?"
The Russian diplomat stressed that, when voting on this matter, Moscow believed that "the solutions offered by its new partners would yield the right result." But, in his words, "it became clear quite soon that the West’s vision of honesty and rightmindedness was in fact a far cry from reality."
"The West <…> remained obsessed with the idea of its own superiority and exceptionalism. Even today, it continues its aggressive policy aimed at stymieing international legal norms, which stand in the way of its unchallenged hegemony. It is deliberately forcing the entire world to choose whether they are ‘with us or against us,’" he noted.
The West uses "the language of ultimatums, illegitimate unilateral sanctions, and force, after all" with anyone who is unwilling to surrender to its will, "provoking instability and instigating conflicts all around the world," the Russian ambassador noted.
According to Botsan-Kharchenko, "the point of no return" was March 24, 1999, "when, bypassing the United Nations, NATO treacherously unleashed barbaric aggression against Yugoslavia, which claimed the lives of around 2,000 civilians and led to the destruction of the country’s infrastructure and industry."
"Seeking to ultimately tear Kosovo and Metohija away from sovereign Serbia, the West is imposing humiliating settlement terms on Belgrade, trying to dictate a foreign policy agenda to it, insisting that it drop a well-balanced and fruitful multifaceted diplomacy," he noted.
He recalled that, thanks to Russia’s diplomatic efforts, "the provision for lifting the restrictions from Yugoslavia immediately after the signing of the Dayton Accords was included in the set of relevant international agreements, despite the West’s resistance."