Lavrov blasts UN Kosovo envoy
AP Published: July 14, 2007, 00:04 Moscow: Russia's foreign minister suggested yesterday the UN envoy overseeing talks on Kosovo's status is biased and questioned his ability to foster a fair settlement of its dispute with Serbia. Sergey Lavrov was responding to remarks by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari, who said Russia would diminish its international stature if it were to block negotiations on the future of the breakaway Serbian province - presumably by vetoing a potential UN resolution. Lavrov said he had not heard Ahtisaari's comments, published on Thursday in a Finnish newspaper, said but they would be "out of place." "If such an announcement lowers someone's international status, it is not Russia's," he told reporters. _____ _____ Lavrov said Ahtisaari's job was to come up with proposals to resolve the dispute, and hinted he could be unfit to monitor further talks between the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo. "If one side cannot accept these proposals, it's necessary to continue negotiations and it's probably necessary to have an impartial international mediator foster these negotiations," he said. Meanwhile, France's foreign minister Bernard Kouchner was in Kosovo yesterday to press ethnic Albanians to restart talks with Serbia on the province's future, as a key ethnic Albanian leader warned renewed negotiations could impose the partition of the province along ethnic lines. Kouchner arrived in Kosovo after urging Serbia to drop its rejection of the Western-backed UN draft resolution and engage in finding a compromise with ethnic Albanian leaders seeking independence. The draft resolution has been woven around a proposal made by France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, for an additional period of talks between Kosovo's Albanians and Serb officials. Sarkozy's proposal was aimed at winning the support of Russia, which holds veto power in the UN The European Union is counting on Sarkozy to resolve the dispute between the West and Russia over Kosovo. http://www.gulf-news.com/world/Russia/10139124.html
