Russia`s UN Ambassador: Ahtisaari plan "closed chapter"

Russia`s UN Ambassador called the UN Kosovo plan a "closed chapter" as the draft resolution on Kosovo`s future was withdrawn from UN Security Council debate Friday over Russia`s veto threat.

Vitaly Churkin avoided the actual word "veto," saying: "I said that we were not going to let it pass, which is clear enough I think... Our attitude to the [UN envoy Martti] Ahtisaari plan is known. This chapter is closed at the present juncture."

Churkin said Moscow was pleased with the outcome of the consultations, which he said suggested that the Western-backed plan to grant "supervised independence" to Serbia`s predominantly Albanian breakaway province would not translate into a binding UN Security Council resolution.

"What has happened is exactly what Russia insisted on... What the co-sponsors said today is understood to mean that the negotiations will continue, and the resolution, which we reiterated today was unacceptable, will not pass. Obviously, what happened today is in line with our view."

"We have ensured that the negotiations continue; we have ensured that a resolution unacceptable to Russia and Belgrade was not approved," Churkin said.

"We are not delaying anything; we are preventing a solution... which in our view would have been detrimental to international law and to the stability of the Balkans," he said.

The cosponsors of the resolution now plan to continue talks in the Contact Group on Kosovo, within which the U.K., France, Italy, Germany, the United States and Russia will gather in Vienna on July 25.

French Ambassador Jean-Marc De La Sabliere said in a statement after a Security Council meeting: "We regret ... that it has been impossible to secure such a resolution in the United Nations Security Council. We will therefore put on hold discussions on the resolution."

Commenting on a suggestion that Kosovo is not similar to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, ex-Soviet Georgia`s breakaway provinces, where most citizens already have Russian passports, and answering the reporter`s remark that "[those regions] did not have ethnic cleansing like in Kosovo," Churkin said:

"We believe that there are very clear similarities among a number of cases, including those you mentioned, and we believe that we have a very objective and very clear view of the history of Kosovo, which is not as one-sided as one would like it to be."

He said that Russia would participate in the Contract Group deliberations "very actively and very prominently."

"Should the parties reach a compromise, the issue of Kosovo`s status may come back to the Security Council," Churkin said.

When asked what leverage Russia will have in the Contract Group where there is no veto power, and how it was going to influence the discussion that would start in Vienna, Churkin said: "You will see what will happen."

sections: Politics, World News