Moscow - Russian diplomats and politicians on Friday
slammed the award of the Nobel Prize to ex-Finnish president Martti
Ahtisaari as an ill-veiled political ploy to justify Kosovo's
independence.
Ahtisaari, who won the honour for 'more than three decades' of
peace brokering, the committee said, is persona non grata in Russia
for advocating Kosovo's independence from Serbia in his post as UN
envoy to the region from 2005.
'I can't fathom how the Nobel Prize or any other award could be
granted Ahtisaari,' Russia's NATO envoy was quoted by news agency
Interfax as saying in Brussels. 'He is the author of a whole slew of
actions that have distorted and impinge on international law and the
decision of the UN security Council.'
Ahtisaari resigned from efforts to reach a resolution in Kosovo in
2007 as Russia - a permanent member of the UN Security Council -
vehemently opposed his plan.
Moscow has continued to lobby against recognition in the West of
Kosovo's declaration of independence less than a year later, warning
it would lead to a wave of cries for self-determination worldwide.
Leonid Slutsky, deputy head of Russia's parliamentary Foreign
Affairs Committee, called Ahtisaari's peace plan for Kosovo the
opening of 'Pandora's box.'
'The peaceful order has been broken,' he said, pointing to war in
Georgia's two rebel regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia and Moscow's
subsequent recognition of the two regions as a consequence of
Western-backing of Kosovo's self-determination.
The reactions from Moscow on Friday to the world's most
prestigious award for careers dedicated to peace underscored the deep
rift in Russia's relations with the West in the wake of the war with
Georgia two months ago.
Russian state television called the choice of Ahtisaari for the
award political and carried a controversy earlier this week claiming
that the Nobel committee was too Euro-centric.
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