Russia Says Kosovo Could Be Precedent For Georgia

Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia (ITAR-TASS)
June 22, 2006 -- Russia's Foreign Ministry said today the decision on the final status of Kosovo could serve as a precedent for the settlement of a range of "frozen conflicts" in former Soviet republics, in particular the breakaway Georgian breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said Russia plans to raise the issue of the status of Kosovo, an ethnically Albanian province of Serbia currently administered by the UN, when the leaders of the world's eight leading industrialized states meet in mid-July at a summit in St. Petersburg.

(AP)