Russia's UN ambassador has called the EU's planned mission in Kosovo "illegal" and said the resolution authorizing the UN to administer the Serb province in 1999 remains in force -- and said the UN mission would remain in Kosovo.
EU leaders agreed to send an 1,800-strong police and judiciary mission to Kosovo to replace the UN administrative mission following Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence on Feb. 17, and it is preparing to deploy.
But Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin on Thursday pointed to a statement dated Feb. 17 from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that disputes any EU takeover.
In the statement, Ban said that until there is a new decision by the Security Council, the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) would consider Resolution 1244 adopted in 1999 "as the legal framework for its mandate and will continue to implement its mandate in the light of the evolving circumstances."
Kosovo came under UN and NATO administration after a NATO-led air war halted former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999.
International talks lasting 14 months failed to produce an agreement between the Serbs, who offered autonomy, and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership, which demanded independence.
Russia, which has close cultural ties to the Serbs, has strongly criticized the EU mission. Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said there was "bitter irony" because the EU mission is supposed to promote the rule of law, but is violating international law.
Churkin called Ban's statement "very important" and noted that it was not contested by anybody in the Security Council.
He stressed that the EU mission has not been mandated or authorized by the Security Council, and said reports that it is taking over from the UN, and talk of a 120-day transition, are "quite disturbing."
"It is disorienting to the international community and population in Kosovo, because let me repeat, as the secretary-general said, 1244 remains in force and UNMIK stays there, until and unless the Security Council takes a new decision on this matter -- and this is not about to happen," Churkin said.
He told reporters that he raised this issue at a closed council meeting on Thursday, quoting from 1244 and the mandate of the EU mission.
"On the basis of that, I concluded that the deployment of the European Union mission was illegal, and therefore any attempts by that mission to usurp the functions of UNMIK would be contrary to 1244," Churkin said.
"Nobody objected, so again I think that that was an important moment for the Security Council," he said.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RSS