Pressed by US, Serbs play on Moscow card

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Sunday February 24, 02:21 AM

Pressed by US, Serbs play on Moscow card

BELGRADE (AFP) - Serb officials welcomed the support of old ally Russia in
opposing Kosovo's independence Saturday, as Moscow warned the West was
jeopardising international relations in recognising the new state.

"Russia enters in war for Kosovo!," read the front-page headline of
Belgrade-based daily Press in response to a stream of Russian rhetoric.

Serbia is under pressure from Washington and Brussels to stop the violence
that erupted after Kosovo's February 17 declaration, but Moscow has weighed
in on Belgrade's behalf -- increasing already tense relations with the West.

An aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday described Western
recognition of Kosovo as a cocked gun ready for firing, telling Interfax
news agency that "no one knows when and where the shot will ring out."

Islamist "jihadists of terror" who had settled in Kosovo could now be
expected to come out into the open, said Anatoly Safonov, Putin's envoy for
international cooperation in combating terrorism and organised crime.

Putin himself on Friday described Kosovo's independence as a "terrible
precedent" that would come back to hit the West "in the face" and would have
"unforeseeable consequences."

And Russia's newly-appointed representative to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said
the same day that Moscow had the right to "use force" if NATO or the EU
challenged the UN over Kosovo.

The Press daily quoted a senior official of the ultra-nationalist Serbian
Radical Party, Aleksandar Vucic, saying that "only Russians could stop
NATO's fascist measures in Kosovo."

It also quoted a Kosovo Serb leader, Goran Bogdanovic, as welcoming the
attitude of Moscow.

"Obviously, the Kosovo problem exceeded the frame of the Balkans and one
could expect (further) dispute among great powers over the issue," he said.

"I understood Rogozin's statement primarily as a warning to the West that
their presence in Kosovo must remain within the (UN Security Council)
Resolution 1244. Otherwise it could lead to increasing tensions and even
conflict of worldwide proportions," he said.

The resolution, passed in June 1999, ended conflict between Serb forces and
ethnic Albanians separatists in Kosovo, putting the province under UN
administration but formally keeping it within Serbian borders.

The resolution was also one of Madrid's arguments against recognising the
independence of Kosovo, Spanish Secretary of State for foreign affairs
Bernardino Leon Gros wrote in an article published by independent Blic
daily.

"Unlike other countries that separated, like Slovakia and Czech Republic,
there has been neither agreement of the involved sides nor a UN resolution
in the case of Kosovo," he wrote.

"Beside legal reasons, this proclamation of independence is contrary to
everything that the international community has proclaimed in the Balkans
since the (conflicts) 1990s," Gros said.

Along with Spain, four other EU members -- Romania, Cyprus, Greece and
Slovakia -- have announced they will not recognise the new state.

Meanwhile, Serbian Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardzic again attacked the
US for their support to ethnic Albanian majority's declaration of the
independence of Kosovo.

"The government of Serbia will not stop to hold the US accountable for
having broken off the international law and seceded a part of Serbia's
territoriy in a violent way," the minister told state-run Tanjug news
agency.

Samardzic rejected Washington's accusations that Serbian authorities had not
properly protected the US embassy in Belgrade when rioting broke out on
Thursday and protesters set fire to the mission, leaving one person dead.

"The main culprit for all the troubles that occurred since February 17 is
the United States," Samardzic said, referring to the date when Kosovo's