The EU's envoy to Kosovo, Stefan Lehne, delivered the warning June 21, shortly after Russia rejected a revised UN Security Council resolution that would delay independence for Kosovo to give the province's ethnic-Albanian majority and Serbs more time to negotiate the future status of the Serbian territory.
Lehne, on a visit to Kosovo's capital, Pristina, said it "would be a huge step backwards" and could erase international goodwill toward Kosovo if ethnic-Albanian leaders were to take the independence issue into their own hands.
(Reuters)
Moscow And Washington: Toe To Toe
U.S. President George W. Bush (left) and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G8 summit in Germany on June 7 (AFP)
MOUNTING TENSIONS. Relations between Russia and the United States have grown increasingly tense in recent months as issues like missile-defense, Kosovo's status, and Russia's domestic policies have provoked sharp, public differences. On June 5, U.S. President George W. Bush said democratic reforms in Russia have been "derailed"....(more)
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