Putin Pays a Call on Kosovo

On his way home from his weekend summit with President Bush, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin toured Yugoslavia on Sunday--and paid a surprise visit to the province of Kosovo--in an effort to promote his national interests and polish his growing reputation as a statesman.

Putin met with Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica in the capital, Belgrade, and, in what the Kremlin billed as a new peace initiative for the region, proposed an agreement to recognize the territorial integrity of all the countries in the Balkans.

“We regard as extremely dangerous and destructive any debates on changing the borders. If we do not stop such actions, we will never achieve a Balkan settlement,” Putin said.

Russian news reports provided few details of the Putin proposal, which appeared aimed at stemming movement toward some form of self-government for Kosovo. Most of the majority ethnic Albanians in the province, a part of Yugoslavia’s dominant republic, Serbia, would like to see it become an independent state.

“Everyone knows that Russia has taken negatively the accelerated adoption of a constitutional framework for self-government in Kosovo,” Putin told Russian paratroopers in the provincial capital, Pristina, who make up part of the multinational peacekeeping force there.

“Too many concessions have been made to radicals,” he added, apparently referring to former leaders of the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army who now play key political roles in the province.

Although Russia has close cultural and historical ties to Serbia, Putin is the first Russian president to visit Yugoslavia since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

Russia has been at sharp odds with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization over the Balkans ever since the alliance decided to intervene in Kosovo in 1999 to halt violence against the province’s ethnic Albanian population by Serbian and Yugoslav forces. Russia considered the intervention a violation of Yugoslavia’s sovereignty, and the Kremlin opposes any move that promotes autonomy for Kosovo.

Russia’s relations with NATO are strained over other issues as well. During his summit with Bush, Putin stressed Russian concerns about the alliance’s expansion into Eastern Europe. But in the Balkans, Russia is simultaneously cooperating with NATO in peacekeeping and peacemaking efforts and pressing its own bilateral interests.

In Pristina, Putin was greeted by a full-dress contingent of goose-stepping Russian paratroopers who serenaded their commander in chief with martial tunes. At the start of the peacekeeping operation, Russian paratroopers rushed from Bosnia-Herzegovina to occupy the Pristina airport in an effort to ensure that Moscow had a significant role in the peacekeeping operations. Although Russia does not have its own sector to patrol, it retains control over the airport.

Putin also met with NATO commanders. Russia and Yugoslavia have been harshly critical of the NATO peacekeeping efforts, saying they have failed to provide adequate protection to all the citizens of the province, particularly its remaining ethnic Serbs.

“We came here to see what kind of cooperation exists, what kinds of problems exist here and how to address and resolve those problems,” Putin said, according to Associated Press.

During his visit, Putin repeated Russian complaints that the NATO intervention had bypassed the United Nations. And he insisted that tougher action be taken to isolate ethnic Albanian rebels who are occupying several villages next door in Macedonia to press for greater rights in that country.

“Urgent efforts should be made to block the channels of financing the rebels,” Putin said. “It is extremely important that nobody in the region would cherish illusions that the international community will reconcile itself with the changing of internationally recognized borders or attempts to resolve political problems by force.”

Putin also promised Kostunica that Russia will not cut off supplies of natural gas to Yugoslavia, despite the federation’s massive debts to Moscow.