LJUBLJANA. May 29 (Interfax) - The latest events in Kosovska Mitrovica have been provoked by those attempting to set up a "sanitary cordon" between the Balkans and Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"As regards the events in Kosovska Mitrovica, who might benefit from staging these kinds of provocations? Such provocations are staged by those who want to turn the Balkans into a sanitary cordon in relation to the Russian Federation," Lavrov said at a news briefing following negotiations with Slovenian Foreign Minister Miroslav Cerar on Wednesday.
"To this end, all countries of the region have to be dragged into NATO. You could see how everything was done to attain this end in resolving the issue of Macedonia's official name," he said.
"We can see attempts being made to force Serbia to accept that the decision on Kosovo's independence must be formalized, thus opening the way to NATO for new territories in the Western Balkans," Lavrov said.
He said the situation had been discussed during his talks in Slovenia on Wednesday.
"We see that Slovenia does not support the designs to create such sanitary cordons. As a member of both NATO and the European Union, Slovenia prefers not creating dividing lines in Europe, which are quite deep as they are, but; on the contrary, trying to overcome them and develop mutually advantageous cooperation open to all countries concerned," Lavrov said.
The incident in Kosovska Mitrovica is "a result of connivance on the part of the European Union and NATO, which have forces in Kosovo's territory, in relation to the Pristina authorities' categorical unwillingness to implement what they are supposed to implement both in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1254 and the obligations agreed upon between Belgrade and Pristina via the European Union's mediation," he said.
Lavrov recalled a decision reached several years ago to set up a community of Serb municipalities in Kosovo.
"The absence of any progress on the matter manifests Pristina's confrontational line and, as a matter of fact - please excuse me if anyone doesn't like this - the European Union's helplessness," he said.