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Kosovo Fell Into Dependence on Serbia
Wounded in deadly riots in northern Kosovo, a Ukrainian peacekeeper died in Pristine late Monday. The violence sparkled in the region exactly in a month after the independence declaration by Kosovo and on the fourth anniversary of Kosovo bloodshed. One of the aftereffects could be the delayed recognition of the new state by the international community.
An officer of Ukrainian peacekeeping division died late Monday in Pristine hospital. He was wounded in the battles of peacekeepers and the Serbs in Mitrovica. The violence sparkled once the U.N. troopers retook a court building previously seized by the local Serbs.
In Kosovo, they summed up the results of the clashes yesterday. The riots killed a peacekeeper and left injured 45 troopers of NATO, 63 policemen and roughly 100 Serbs. The condition of two peacekeepers and a Serb is grave.
Although it wasn’t the bloodshed yet, the aftereffects of the riots could be very serious. First, the Ukrainian peacekeepers will probably withdraw from the region. Some 20 of them were wounded in addition to the killed officer. It was Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Vasily Kirilich that made the respective assumption yesterday, specifying, however, that the issue was beyond competence of the Foreign Ministry. Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko flies to Kosovo today and Kiev is expected to decide the destiny of its peacekeepers exactly by results of this trip.
Moreover, NATO will have to strengthen its contingent in Kosovo to oppose the future riots. And last but not least, the deathly clashes may slow down the recognition of province independence. Some 30 states have recognized Kosovo already and a dozen has bluntly opposed it, but more than a hundred haven’t arrived at any particular conclusion yet and exactly their decision is vital for determining the international status of Kosovo.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 19, 2008
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