Word: kosovo
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...splitting the West and the wider international community, the U.S.-backed declaration of independence by Kosovo has given Russia an opening. Countries concerned with separatist problems of their own, from Spain or Cyprus to China, have been unable to follow the U.S. lead in recognizing Kosovo's breakaway from Serbia. And Russia has sought to exploit the gaps that have emerged as a result...
...Serbia, itself, Russia capitalized literally, on the standoff over Kosovo. In Belgrade, just a week before he became Russia's President-elect, Dmitri Medvedev supervised Serbia's signing up to a prospective Russian Southern Stream natural gas pipe-line. Serbia also sold to Russia a 51% stake of Naftna Industrija Srbija (NIS), a much prized national oil company for $614 million and the promise of a further investment of $770 million. Russia plans build a major gas storage facility in Serbia, making the country a key base for Russian energy supplies to Europe. This consolidation of ties with Serbia achieves...
...part, NATO, long eager to grant Georgia membership, has backpedaled, saying that Georgia isn't yet ready to join. The Kosovo opening may indeed encourage a resurgent Russia to go beyond simply exercising de facto control over Abkhazia and South Ossetia...
...Another after-effect of Kosovo's independence is Moscow's rallying of its hitherto reluctant CIS partners against the West. Oil-rich Azerbaijan, for example, had long begun inclining towards the West, but may be pushed back into Moscow's orbit because of Nagorno-Karabakh, a province that broke away in the 1990s and has de facto integrated with Armenia. Last week, for the first time in years, Azeri and Armenian forces clashed in a full scale fighting in Karabakh...
...Even a staunchly pro-Western Georgia, furious as it is with Russia, might finally be forced back into Russia's orbit because of Kosovo. "It's indeed surrealistic," quips Japaridze darkly: "How it happens that in terms of the 'Kosovo Precedent' we, Georgians, Azerbaijani, Moldovans, have to support Russia's position and go against the West...