NORWAY: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Pristina and Belgrade should be left alone to work out the future status of Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo/He also says Estonian authorities have abused European culture by removing

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Pristina and Belgrade should be left alone to work out the future status of Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo. He also says Estonian authorities have abused European culture by removing a Red Army monument from the centre of Tallinn. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in Oslo for a NATO foreign ministers' meeting, told reporters on Friday (April 27) that the future status of Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo should be negotiated by Pristina and Belgrade without outside intervention. Lavrov also said the Estonian government had spat on European values by removing a World War Two Red Army monument from the centre of Tallinn. The removal of the statue, dedicated to Red Army soldiers who died fighting the Nazis, provoked riots in the Estonian capital overnight and a furious reaction from the upper house of the Russian parliament which asked President Vladimir Putin to cut off relations with the small Baltic state. Lavrov told reporters in Oslo: ''We are indignant at these sacrilegious acts and in the way they dispersed the demonstrators who were protecting this sacred monument which was erected in the memory of those who fought to free the whole European continent." He added: "I think this is something that should be of concern for all of Europe as it touches on the very values on which the whole of Europe is constructed." Estonia was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 as part of a agreement between Stalin and Hitler before Russia and Germany went to war. Estonia regained its independence in 1991 and joined the European Union in 2004, giving the bloc a new common border with Russia. Russian troops withdrew from Estonia in 1994. At a news conference, Lavrov termed outside interference in the future status of Kosovo as "imperialistic". Lavrov told reporters: "The status of Kosovo should be decided by the directly involved parties, Pristina and Belgrade, and that's the only principle on which a sustainable settlement could be based, not only in Kosovo, in Palestine, in Cyprus, in the Western Sahara, in any other crisis situation. And that's what Russia promotes and we cannot take any other position.'' Diplomats reported that, at the talks on Friday, the United States and its allies raised the prospect of adapting a U.N. plan for the independence of Kosovo to address criticism by Russia, which could block the move. Russia has backed Serbia in opposing the U.N. plan drawn up by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari. Serbia rejects the independence of Kosovo, which it says would be violation of its territorial integrity. Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO drove out Serb forces accused of killing and expelling civilians in a two-year war with separatist guerrillas. At a separate news conference in Oslo, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said it was the job of NATO member to avoid "a new spiral of mistrust between America and Russia". On Thursday (April 26) Putin froze Moscow's commitments under a European arms control pact. The move has escalated a row between the United States and Russia over U.S. plans to build a missile shield in eastern Europe.

ITN Source | April 28, 2007

Tags:. .adapting. .violation. .sustainable. .opposing. .diplomats