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State Dept.: Kosovo Doesn't Set Precedent

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  • State Dept.: Kosovo Doesn't Set Precedent

    STATE DEPT.: KOSOVO DOESN'T SET PRECEDENT

    B92
    March 6 2008
    Serbia

    WASHINGTON -- Tom Casey says that Kosovo does not set a precedent
    and should not be viewed as such.

    "Kosovo's status was implemented with a specific United Nations
    Security Council resolution, which presupposed that status would be
    defined at the right moment by the international community."

    "That is where we are now. Kosovo is not a precedent and should not be
    seen as a precedent for any other place in the world. It is certainly
    not a precedent for Nagorno-Karabakh," the U.S. State Department
    spokesman said.

    The latest conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, seen as the most serious in
    the past few years, according to Casey, cannot be solved by military
    intervention, Voice of America reported.

    Azerbaijan and Armenia blame each other for the conflict which broke
    out on Tuesday along the ceasefire line.

    The spokesman told reporters that the U.S. was concerned by the
    violence and hoped that there would be no repeat of Tuesday's events.

    "This all shows that the two sides should, together with the so-called
    Minsk Group, work on resolving the conflict. I know that problems
    exist, but there is no military solution. This problem must be solved
    diplomatically," he stressed.

    Nagorno-Karabakh is an enclave in Azerbaijan populated by Armenians
    which declared independence in 1988. A six-year conflict led to
    the deaths of over 35,000 people. The Minsk Group, formed in 1992,
    president over by France, Russia and the U.S., is leading diplomatic
    efforts to solve the conflict.

    Yerevan accuses Azerbaijan of using the post-election crisis in Armenia
    to open a conflict, while Baku claims that extremist Armenians in
    Nagorno-Karabakh have been encouraged by international recognition
    of Kosovo's unilateral independence declaration.

    Casey said that the two could not be compared.

    Holbrooke agrees

    Former special envoy of the U.S. president for the Balkans Richard
    Holbrooke hursday stated that the declaration of Kosovo's independence
    will not set a precedent for attempts by entities to gain independence
    in other parts of the world.

    Claming that it is impossible for the Cold War to get restored
    over Kosovo, Holbrooke said in an interview with Russia's daily
    Nezavisimaya Gazeta that the opposed stands of Russia and the
    United States regarding Kosovo might have been avoided had the
    U.S. administration engaged in a long dialogue with Moscow and had
    Russia introduced less tension in the process of resolving the issue.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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