U.S., Russian lawmakers debate Kosovo

U.S., Russian lawmakers debate Kosovo

Lantos opened the meeting by saying he hoped the discussion would set a tone of "friendship and openness" ahead of a July 1-2 summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush - and at a time when ties between the two countries are increasingly distant.

Beside topics such as the U.S. missile defense system in Europe and the freedom of the media in Russia, the meeting also discussed Kosovo.

Representative Eliot Engel acknowledged Moscow's concern that if Serbia's predominantly ethnic-Albanian province of Kosovo becomes independent, it will set a precedent for breakaway republics of Transdniester in Moldova, and South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia.

But Kosovo, Engel said, is nothing like those republics. Independence for Kosovo, he added, is the only way to end what he called "the last unresolved problem" in the former Yugoslavia.

"We in the United States believe that independence for Kosovo is inevitable, and we either do it according to the Ahtisaari plan, which is an orderly way. Or we do it in a less orderly way, whereby Kosovo would declare independence, and the United States and other countries would recognize it," Engels said.

"I would hope that we could do it in an orderly way, and I would hope that the threat of the Russian veto to the Ahtisaari plan would not come about."

If Russia does use its veto power at the UN Security Council, he added, the United States will still recognize Kosovo independence.

Speaking for the Russian delegation, lawmaker Natalia Narochnitskaya made a stark warning about the threat inherent in granting independence to Kosovo.

"I will be frank," she said. "What you would be creating [by giving Kosovo independence] is a militant Islamic state with pronounced geographic expansionism in the center of Europe."

Another deputy, Aleksandr Kozlovsky, reiterated that the Russians could not agree with the U.S. position.

He listed the former Soviet countries with breakaway republics and drew parallels to Serbia.

"If Kosovo gains independence, not a single Abkhaz or a South Ossetian would understand why they cannot become independent," Kozlovsky said.

Russia, Kozlovsky said, is not against resolving the Kosovo problem. It just wants to slow down the current process and avoid "a quick and dirty agreement to the status" question.

Otherwise, he warned, new problems will begin the day after independence is granted, when an "Albanian state" is created and the Serbian population begins to flee.

At this point, Lantos interrupted Kozlovsky, saying equating the Kosovo situation with other frozen conflicts in the former Soviet Union was "simply historically inaccurate."

Lantos said the United States would not accept the characterization of Kosovo as "just one of the little ethnic disputes."

The issue of final status will either be resolved at the UN, or when the Albanians declare their own independence unilaterally, he said.

"I can assure you the following day [after independence is declared] the United States will recognize Kosovo as an independent country, as will the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Holland, Denmark, and all the others," he said.

"So Russia can either be with Europe and the United States on the basis of a United Nations resolution of a brutal ethnic cleansing at long last being rectified, or it can stand on its own."

Throughout the remarks by Lantos, the Russian delegation sat stone-faced but showed little reaction, RFE reports.

James Collins, who was the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 1997 to 2001, and is now the director of the Russian and Eurasian program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says face-to-face meetings like the June 21 gathering are a good way to clear up misunderstandings.

"I believe they're extremely useful," he said. "I think when we don't have direct discussions between members of the legislative branch and their counterparts, we simply get a lot of misunderstandings. And this is a very good way to get clarifications."