Kosovo still 'quasi-state' without legal existence: Russia
AFP

  A Kosovo Serb woman walks on September 10 as an Austrian Army armored personnel carrier of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping mission patrols in the ethnically divided Kosovo town of Mitrovica. Russia said Tuesday it still considers Kosovo to be a quasi-state without legal existence after the end of supervision by an international body, backing Serbia's refusal to recognise the territoryView Photo

      A Kosovo Serb woman walks on September 10 as an Austrian Army armored personnel carrier …

Russia said Tuesday it still considers Kosovo to be a quasi-state without legal existence after the end of supervision by an international body, backing Serbia's refusal to recognise the territory.

The assertion came a day after Western powers, operating as the so-called International Steering Group (ISG), announced it was ending its supervision in Kosovo.

"Because the International Steering Group has no official recognised status, we act on the premise that, regardless of its decision, Kosovo continues to be a quasi-state with no international legal personality," ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Russian news agency Interfax.

The ISG, made up of 23 European Union members, Turkey and the United States, had overseen Kosovo for the last four years.

The decision to end supervision was greeted as a "historic milestone" by US President Barack Obama, and the ISG said the move "confirms that the international community respects Kosovo."

In July, the ISG said the end of supervision would mean Kosovo would gain "full sovereignty". However, Pristina in reality has no effective control over Serb-majority northern Kosovo, which rejects the ethnic Albanian authorities.

The ISG "was formed by states that recognised the self-proclaimed 'Republic of Kosovo'" to help implement former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari's plan for settlement "which was not approved by the United Nations Security Council," Zakharova said.

Kosovo and its two million majority ethnic-Albanian population had been under some form of international administration since a NATO bombing campaign forced then Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic's troops out of the Serbian province in 1999.

Kosovo's independence has been recognised by some 90 countries, including most EU nations, but is rejected by Belgrade, Russia and Kosovo's own ethnic Serbs, who make up about six percent of the population, living mainly in the north.

Serbia -- which has never accepted Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence -- dismissed the sovereignty announcement as meaningless.