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Russia: Macedonian Crisis Results From NATO Connivance
A top Russian Defense official said Wednesday that the rising escalation of tension in Macedonia is an inevitable outcome of NATO's policy of conniving at Kosovo Albanian militants.
"The current crisis in Macedonia was provoked by NATO forces' connivance actions at Kosovo Albanian extremists," Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, Chief of the Russian Defense Ministry's Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation, said in an exclusive interview with Itar-Tass news agency.
The growing tension in the Balkans is caused "by the policy of KFOR (international peacekeeping troops) in Kosovo, primarily, the policy of NATO structures with regard to Albanian separatists, as well as the refusal to demilitarize the Yugoslav province and disarm the Kosovo Liberation Army," Ivashov stressed.
"The Russian Defense Ministry has repeatedly stressed the need to disarm extremist forces in Kosovo and neutralize their activities. Basically, NATO helped preserve armed groups in Kosovo, which have now opened a second front in Macedonia", he said.
"The impression is that certain forces, including NATO, are interested not in stopping the conflict in the Balkans, but in letting it go on forever," the general emphasized.
He said that NATO has not asked Russia to participate in a joint operation to disarm Albanian militants in Macedonia.
"Russia has not received any proposals and, as far as the Defense Ministry knows, no appropriate requests have been sent to the U.N. Security Council either", he said.
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