Putin calls Kosovo independence 'terrible precedent'

(MOSCOW) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday described the declaration of independence by Kosovo as a "terrible precedent" that will come back to hit the West "in the face."

The comments came as Moscow ratcheted up its condemnation of Western powers' support for the province's secession from Serbia, with a Russian envoy warning NATO and the European Union against "brute force" in Kosovo.

Russia has vehemently opposed Kosovo's independence declaration, reflecting Moscow's historical ties with Orthodox Christian Serbia, which continues to claim Kosovo as a Serbian province.

"The precedent of Kosovo is a terrible precedent, which will de facto blow apart the whole system of international relations, developed not over decades, but over centuries," Putin told a Moscow meeting of regional leaders.

"They have not thought through the results of what they are doing. At the end of the day it is a two-ended stick and the second end will come back and hit them in the face," Putin said, in comments later broadcast on state television.

In recent weeks Russian officials have suggested that Kosovo's declaration could boost the independence claims of separatist regions in Western Europe.

Since Kosovo's ethnic-Albanian majority declared independence on Sunday, Russia has used its position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to try to get the body to declare the move null and void.

But with Western powers blocking Kosovo's move, Moscow has taken to supporting Serbia with a string of verbal broadsides and veiled threats.

Russia's newly-appointed representative to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said Friday that support for Kosovo from the European Union or NATO would in turn give Russia the right to use its own "brute force" in future scenarios.

"If the European Union works out a common position, or if NATO breaches its mandate in Kosovo, these organisations will be in conflict with the United Nations," Rogozin was quoted as saying in a video link-up from Brussels.

"We too would then have to proceed from the view that in order to be respected we must use brute force, in other words armed force," Rogozin said, Interfax news agency reported.

European Commission spokesman Johannes Laitenberger condemned the remarks by saying that "speculation over the use of force is certainly not helpful in this situation".

The Kremlin later downplayed the threat of military intervention with Putin's special representative for European affairs Sergei Yastrzhembsky saying the Kosovo problem "could not have a military solution," Interfax news agency reported.

Earlier Friday the Russian foreign ministry blamed supporters of Kosovo's independence for triggering embassy attacks in Belgrade on Thursday.

"What happened yesterday in Belgrade can only be a cause for regret," foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin was quoted as saying by Interfax, referring to riots in the Serbian capital which killed one person and wounded 118 others.

"But we would like to point out that those forces that supported Kosovo's proclamation of independence should have been aware of the consequences of such a step," he continued.

Meanwhile, a Russian pro-Kremlin youth group said that some of its members planned to take part in a demonstration by Serbs in the ethnically-divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica in northern Kosovo.

The activists "have gone to support the Serbs but they did not take part in the riots" in Belgrade on Thursday, Alexei Khudyakov, a member of the Young Russia group, told Echo of Moscow radio.