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New catastrophe looms in Kosovo as West 'toys' with international law — diplomat

Maria Zakharova noted that there is a reliable foundation for settling the situation, which remains fully in effect

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova Sergey Fadeichev/TASS

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

© Sergey Fadeichev/TASS

MOSCOW, June 21. /TASS/. The West is toying with international law in an attempt to create alternative ways to resolve the Kosovo problem, and this may lead the region down a path to calamity, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during a briefing Wednesday.

The diplomat underscored that the US and the EU continue to turn a blind eye towards Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s subversive actions and deliberately bring the settlement to a deadlock in order to "force the Serbs to surrender their vital interests."

"Since April 2013, Pritstina has been shirking its commitments to Serb municipalities in Kosovo. Instead of pressing the Kosovars, US mediators are laying the groundwork to radically decrease the community’s authority, and, of course, its replacement with some mechanism on protection of language rights, supporting Kurti’s claim about, as he put it, the non-territorial nature of this structure," she noted. "Amid these circumstances, there is a growing risk that the West will toy with international law in an aim to create alternative options for resolution of the Kosovo problem, taking the region to a new catastrophe, yet another one."

The diplomat noted that there is a reliable foundation for settling the situation, which remains fully in effect.

"That being the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 - the basis for negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina, for any mediation efforts of the international community - the foundation is the same," she added.

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Foreign policy Maria Zakharova

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