Posted on 01/31/2006 3:35:29 PM PST by Flavius
Putin warns Kosovo independence could rock Caucasus MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said today independence for Kosovo could create a dangerous precedent in the troubled regions of the Caucasus.
Putin's comments, at his annual news conference in the Kremlin, came as the European Union and the United States sought to unite the divided leadership of the Balkan region for talks on independence.
He said independence for Kosovo could cause problems for provinces such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which gained de facto independence from Georgia in the early 1990s and are now propped up by Russia.
''If someone considers that Kosovo can be given full state independence, then why must we refuse this to the Abkhazians or South Ossetians,'' Putin said.
''I do not want to say that Russia will immediately recognise Abkhazia or South Ossetia as independent states, but such precedents exist,'' he said.
The comments are certain to shake the fragile ties between Moscow and Tbilisi, since Georgia already accuses its giant neighbour of supporting the rebel provinces internationally considered to be part of Georgia.
Moscow says it is merely helping to keep the peace and protect its citizens in the breakaway regions, where most residents have been given Russian passports and state budgets are subsidised by Moscow.
Kosovo, legally a province of Serbia, has been a United Nations protectorate since 1999 after a NATO bombing campaign, launched to prevent a Serbian crackdown on Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians turning into a slaughter of civilians, pushed out Serbian troops.
Russia, a close ally of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, opposed the NATO bombing campaign that led to the overthrow of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.
ping
May be he is right this time
"May be he is right this time"
There's a first time for everything, but I doubt this is it.
Fragmentation just increases the potential for more dictators and failed states.
"Fragmentation just increases the potential for more dictators and failed states."
It seems to me that the biggest threat is dictators that collect fragments rather than creating them.
Try replacing the date with 1776 and Russia with France and Georgia with Britain.
Nah it was Rock the Casbah, and if you listen to the words a message we should be diseminating.
Yet Soros continually chamions nationalistic causes universally even in states with scarecly a 10 year claim to ethnic nationalism.
I thought it was Putin's trying to restart the Cold War that was setting a dangerous precedent...
Putin is really shooting himself in the foot.
I guess that's why putin against it. He is afraid of chechens will have a hope & the'll keep on terrorize russian citizens
By encouraging the forces of Balkanization and separatism to seep across the fromer Soviet space, he is inviting the collpase of his own nation.
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