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Patriarch Condemns Nobel Prize Award
Patriarch Alexy II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has criticized the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to former president of Finland Martti Ahtisaari. The said that the politician “enabled the seizure of Kosovo from Serbia,” Interfax reports. The patriarch announced at a meeting with Serbian Ambassador to Russia Stanimir Vukicevic that the Russian Orthodox Church considers Kosovo part of Serbia. He said that the region is holy land for the Serbian people and mentioned its “quantity of churches and monasteries.”
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Ahtisaari for “important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts.” In 2007, as UN special representative in Kosovo, he proposed a plan for the settlement of the conflict that gave Kosovo practical independence from Serbia. Serbia and Russia opposed the proposal. It was supported by the Albanian separatists of Kosovo, the European Union and the United States.
In February of this year, Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence. It has been recognized by about 50 countries.
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