Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke in an exclusive interview with Alternative Television Banja Luka (ATV) about the reasons for increased Western pressure on Serbia and Republika Srpska (part of Bosnia and Herzegovina), attempts to push Kosovo into the Council of Europe, as well as to recognise Serbs as a genocidal people by initiating consideration of a resolution in the UN General Assembly on the events in Srebrenica in 1995.
“The goal is to break the Serbs,” the minister stated. – It has not disappeared anywhere. Ten years ago in the UN Security Council, they tried to pass such a resolution. We used the right of veto. It is impossible to explain what the Europeans are guided by in practical terms, promoting this idea, except for one reason – the Serbs are too willful, too independent in their actions, not submitting to demands to join the sanctions against Russia”.
Sergey Lavrov stressed that Serbs do not want to recognise Kosovo’s independence, do not want Kosovo to become a member of international organisations. “For the West now it is actually an ultimatum to Belgrade,” he reported. – “In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik is exposed as the ‘main villain’ who is supposedly destroying Dayton, although in fact he and his team are the only ones in Bosnia fighting for the Dayton principles. Belgrade is being told: do you want to become a member of the European Union (President Aleksandar Vucic recently reaffirmed the European orientation of his state policy)? Recognise Kosovo and join the sanctions against Russia, because EU membership automatically implies fighting Russia. Saying such things to Serbs, completely ignoring the history of our friendship, joint battles for freedom, for independence, for Orthodoxy in the end, for the Slavs? All of this is of absolutely no interest to the West. I would even say it is interested, but with a minus sign. This is what they need to destroy. This is what they are doing with great success.
According to the minister, a shameful action has now been taken in the Council of Europe. “PACE voted in favour of Kosovo being accepted there as a state, a full member,” the Russian Foreign Minister remarked. – In a couple of weeks, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe will consider the same issue. There is no doubt that they will “push through” this decision. They are already justifying their actions with regard to Kosovo in the Council of Europe by the fact that in Kosovo there is progress in the fight against corruption, the creation of an effective justice system. Everyone knows that Kosovo is a territory of complete lawlessness. But our Western colleagues, without blushing, say that it is almost a “beacon” of democracy. There has never been any democracy there. It is an area of organised crime, an area of ethnic cleansing of Serbs. I have heard that since 2003 the outflow of Serbs has continued. In January 2003, about 15 per cent of those who were Serbs at the time had already left. Orthodoxy is being eradicated. This is quite obvious. The West likes it. The West wants Orthodoxy to be irreparably damaged and the Orthodox world to be under the leadership of the patriarch of Constantinople, who, in turn, is under the direct control of the United States, dependent on them financially and fulfils all their “whims”.
Sergey Lavrov pointed out that the same policy is being implemented with regard to the Republika Srpska. “Now the self-appointed German high representative, who is illegitimate because the UN Security Council did not approve him properly, is trying in every way to discredit the Republika Srpska,” the minister said. – He is pursuing a line on the unitarisation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is “flirting” with certain political forces among Bosnian Croats. But they still have their own vision of how to defend their identity and Dayton’s principles on the equality of the three constituent peoples. The sad thing is. All this is done by people who periodically accuse us and other countries of violating the UN Charter, Security Council resolutions. And what they are now promoting as an agenda for Bosnia and Herzegovina is a direct undermining of the UN Security Council resolution. Maybe that is why the US Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, after the resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip for the month of Ramadan was adopted, said that yes, it was adopted, the United States did not obstruct, abstained, but supposedly everyone knows that this resolution is non-binding. Although it is written in the UN Charter that all Security Council resolutions are binding. But you see, for the US, resolutions on Palestine, on the Balkans, if they reflect the interests (of the Serbian people in particular), are not binding. You have to proceed from that.”
