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Putin Calls for Firm World Stand on Keeping Peace in Balkans
Russian President Vladimir Putin Wednesday urged the international community to adopt a tough stand on maintaining peace in the Balkan region, first to preserve Macedonia's territorial inviolability.
Although it is hard to speak of good prospects for settlement in Macedonia now, but a firm international anti-aggression position is key to keeping peace in Macedonia, Putin told an interview with four leading Russian newspapers in Moscow.
"For such prospects to appear, there must be a consolidated and firm position of the international community against racism and separatism", he stressed.
Accusing NATO of "doing nothing to disarm the Kosovo Liberation Army," the president noted that "the alliance has made it not possible any more to disarm the ethnic Albanian militants".
"If we want to restore peace and prosperity in the Balkans, it is necessary to deprive the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army of weapons and ensure the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and Macedonia," he emphasized.
"We must not allow separatism to spread in Europe. Otherwise, it will do no good to this part of Europe, and produce a very bad impact on both Europe's image and the economic situation in the continent", Putin warned.
Russia "is watching with alarm what is happening" in Macedonia because "we have special relations with large groups of the population in the former Yugoslavia" and "we have many interests there," he added.
Putin also called on all parties concerned to implement the relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions on former Yugoslavia problems so as to resume peace and well-being in that land.
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