http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090220/120237609.html
Russian Information Agency Novosti February 20, 2009 Russia not getting ready to recognize Kosovo - Lavrov MOSCOW - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed on Friday a claim by Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci that Moscow was getting ready to recognize the province as an independent state. In an interview with the Serbian newspaper Politika on Thursday, a year and two days after Kosovo's declaration of unilateral independence, Thaci said Russia had positively assessed the current situation in the province and would soon recognize its sovereignty. "I think Mr. Thaci is indulging in wishful thinking ... Mr. Thaci is the last person to make statements on behalf of the Russian Federation," Lavrov told a Moscow news conference following talks with his Serbian counterpart Vuk Jeremic. Lavrov said Russia's position on Kosovo remained unchanged. Moscow supports Belgrade's view that Kosovo is an indivisible part of Serbia. "I reiterated it today, and there can be no ambiguity here," Lavrov said. The Maldives became the 55th country to recognize Kosovo as an independent state on Thursday. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2009&mm=02&dd=20&nav_id=57308 FoNet/Tanjug News Agency February 20, 2009 Lavrov: Russia won’t recognize Kosovo MOSCOW - There can be no talk of any kind of Russian recognition of Kosovo, says Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Lavrov made the statement following a meeting with Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, in response to Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci’s claim in yesterday’s daily Politka that Russia would recognize Kosovo. “Thaci says things the way he would like them to be,” said Lavrov, adding that “Thaci certainly is not the person who should be speaking on the Russian Federation’s behalf.” “Russia’s stance has been expressed by its leadership, something I confirmed today. There can be no kind of ambiguity,” he said, according to the Russian Itar-Tass agency. Meanwhile, President Boris Tadic has said that the situation in Kosovo is extremely bad. Speaking to Russian daily Vremya Novostei, he said that Belgrade would never stop pursuing its legitimate interests nor accept Pristina’s unilaterally declared independence. Asked about Thaci’s recent statement qualifying Kosovo as a “democratic state”, Tadic first pointed out that the level of human rights protection in Kosovo was the lowest possible in Europe. “Let’s look at it on the basis of how many people have returned to Kosovo, those who were exiled from their homes. Let’s look at it on the basis of those people in Kosovo who have been charged with war crimes,” he said. Tadic also observed that Serb community representatives in Kosovo were very vulnerable, and warned that they continued to received threats to this day, “unambiguously and practically all the time.” “The Kosovo administration, the Pristina administration, wants to usurp our centuries-old existence in Kosovo, and our Serbian Orthodox monasteries, and declare it so-called Kosovar cultural heritage,” he said. “That is something which is simply unimaginable, impermissible from the perspective of preserving national identity. It threatens the fundamental human rights of the Serb people in Kosovo,” Tadic concluded.
