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West punishing Serbia for independent stance by fanning tension in Kosovo - diplomat

This was stated on Monday by Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko

MOSCOW, September 25. /TASS/. The latest escalation around Kosovo was instigated by the West to punish Belgrade for its political independence, Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said on Monday.

"To some extent, the current developments and this new outburst of tension can be rightly viewed as the West punishing Serbian president [Aleksandar Vucic] for the independence, resoluteness, and free thought he demonstrated at the UN General Assembly," he said in a video posted on the Zvezda television channel’s Telegram channel.

The Russian diplomat said that he has no doubt that Western countries want a situation of controlled tension in Serbia to "exert pressure on Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and get him to recognize Kosovo sooner rather than later," he said.

"In his statement on these developments, the Serbian president once again vowed that Belgrade will never recognize Kosovo. This is a firm, rock-solid position," the ambassador said. "But the West is sticking to its course to, I will repeat, suppress Belgrade’s political will, suppress the entire Serbian world, which is refusing to be the West’s puppet, unlike many other countries."

Aggravation in Kosovo

In his address to the nation on the evening of September 24, Vucic said that the NATO-led international security force in Kosovo (KFOR) actually gave Albin Kurti, the prime minister of the self-proclaimed republic of Kosovo, free reign to kill Serbs in the incident in northern Kosovo where three Serbian nationals were murdered while KFOR officers were helping the Kosovo police in their operation against local Serbs.

Earlier, Kurti posted photos of armed men in masks claiming that they had attacked police officers with support from the Serbian authorities. According to Kurti, the Kosovo police were conducting an operation to detain the suspects who killed one policeman and wounded another on the night of September 24. Later, Vucic said that the Kosovo police killed three Serbs and badly wounded two more. According to the Serbian president, Belgrade will never recognize the province's independence after what happened.

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