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MOSCOW -- Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said at a U.N. General Assembly session on Tuesday that failure to implement the U.N. Security Council resolution on Serbia's Kosovo and Metohija province could once again bring the world to the brink of disaster.
Addressing the session within a general political debate, Ivanov said the international community had managed through joint efforts to bring back the settling of the situation in Kosovo to the political-legal field of the United Nations.
Pointing out that it was now necessary strictly and consistently to implement Resolution 1244 on Kosovo and Metohija, Ivanov warned that the international community should not permit the renewed political process to be undermined once again, as this could turn into a tragedy for all of Europe.
Ivanov said everyone was obliged to draw serious lessons from the recent crises. Illegitimate methods of using force only aggravate problems, he said.
Even in those parts of his speech in which he did not mention the Kosovo crisis, Ivanov aimed the brunt of his criticism at the way in which the United States and NATO had abused the world organization to impose their own interests in Yugoslavia.
The international community can resort to forcible measures, but it must be done in keeping with the U.N. Charter and the approval of the Security Council, said Ivanov.
An improvement of the regime of sanctions applied often in the past decades should be put on the agenda, he said, even though this is the last measures that should be used, as it has negative humanitarian consequences.
The world community must resolutely stamp out any awakenings of separatism, and protect the principles of sovereignty and territorial interity of states and the inviolability of their borders in a severe and due manner, Ivanov said.