RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY: RUSSIA-NATO STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WILL SETTLE KOSOVO PROBLEM
RIA Novosti
Moscow, March 24 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Foreign Ministry is convinced that the recently developed strategic partnership between Russia and leading western states and Russia and NATO will help find a sound and just solution to the Kosovo problem by joint efforts with the participation of the UN, the European Union, Belgrade and Pristina. This statement was made by official spokesman for the Russian foreign ministry Alexander Yakovenko on the anniversary of the beginning of NATO's airstrikes on Yugoslavia.
The strikes badly damaged the image of the OSCE, whose mission had operated in Kosovo, before the attacks started, and failed to fulfill its task. The mission's head was unwise to consider the tragic events in the village of Rachak as murder of civilians without ascertaining the facts, which was one of the excuses for NATO to start the military operation, the official was quoted as saying.
"The truth of the Rachak events is still kept in secret. The materials of the investigation held by Finnish pathologists, who dismissed the story of murder of civilians as false, were not revealed to the public. Moreover, after the materials were submitted to the International Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, they were announced lost, the diplomat stressed.
These are the reasons why there is still a high level of ethnic tension in Kosovo, where Serbs live in conditions unacceptable by modern European standards, Yakovenko noted.
"The key task is to provide Kosovo's compliance with recognized standards in priority sectors, protect the rights of the non-Albanian, first of all Serbian, population, ensure its security and make it possible for refugees and internally displaced persons to return," the official spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying.
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