Moscow - Outgoing President Vladimir Putin and other Russian
politicians on Saturday again harshly criticized the international
recognition of Kosovo, saying it would increase the terrorism risk.
'It is inevitable that such a gross violation of international law
will increase the risk of terrorism,' Putin's anti-terrorism
representative Anatoli Safonov was quoted as saying by the Interfax
news agency.
Separatism and terrorism were directly related, Safonov said.
Putin had already warned Friday that international recognition of
Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia on Sunday, could
trigger a whole chain of unpredictable events.
Kosovo was a 'terrible precedent,' breaking up 'the whole system
of international relations created in the past centuries,' Putin
said.
He accused the governments which had recognized Kosovo of failing
to see the possible consequences of their actions.
However, despite all its verbal attacks, the Russian government
has stressed repeatedly the military would not intervene to protect
Serb interests.
'I am sure that our allies in the European Union know the Russian
approach towards a solution of the Kosovo problem very well,' the
Kremlin's EU envoy Sergei Yastrshembski said in Moscow Saturday.
The Russian NATO envoy Dmitry Rogozin meanwhile was angry at
Western media reports that claimed he had threatened the West with
'brute military force' over the Kosovo issue.
The reports were a 'deliberate falsification of his spoken words,'
Rogozin said in Brussels.
According to Russian news agencies, Rogozin on Friday - in
reaction to the recognition of Kosovo - had expressed his concern
that 'in future we will live in a world no longer ruled by
international law, but by brute military force.'
Rogozin also ruled out 'completely' a possible Russian military
intervention in Kosovo.
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