Russia's reaction to the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence

Kosovo Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Hashim Thaci has said that he regrets the fact Pristina's bid to join UNESCO fell three votes short.

Serbia's mission to UN has protested over the presence of a Kosovo delegation at a counter-terrorism meeting at UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday.

UN representatives called it "a private meeting organized by the US, which is why Kosovo was treated as an independent state," Serbia's public broadcaster, RTS, reported on Wednesday.

Kosovo joining UNESCO would be a direct violation of international law, but also of the UN Charter and UNSC Resolution 1244, which nobody has abolished.

That is how Russian Ambassador to Serbia Aleksandar Chepurin commented on Pristina's attempts to join UNESCO.

Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta has told the Pristina-based Klan Kosova television outlet that his country "could recognize Kosovo."

Ethnic Albanians in Serbia's southern province in early 2008 unilaterally declared independence, but Serbia rejected the proclamation as a violation of its territorial integrity and Constitution.

Kosovo's Foreign Minister Hashim Thaci has announced that Pristina will soon bring "a genocide claim" against Serbia, "and request damages."

He said this during Tuesday's United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting on Kosovo and Metohija, and added that "appropriate documentation" was prepared for this."

At a meeting in Belgrade with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday, Nikolic said that Serbia's fate was bound to Russia and expressed hope for greater economic cooperation and even closer relations.

Thaci says he wants Serbia "to apologize"

VIENNA -- Hashim Thaci has said that he is "seeking an apology from Serbia for the victims of the war in Kosovo in the 1990s."

Thaci, a former leader of the KLA who now serves as Kosovo's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, has also announced "a genocide lawsuit."

Czech president refers to Thaci as "war criminal"

BELGRADE -- Czech President Milos Zeman says that he personally does not recognize Kosovo as independent and therefore is not sending an ambassador to Pristina.

Thaci: There'll be consequences of "Belgrade's refusal"

VIENNA -- Serbia's decision "not to approve" his visit to Belgrade is "contrary to the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue," Hashim Thaci has said.

"It will certainly have its consequences," Thaci, who serves as Kosovo's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, told the Vienna daily Presse.

A Belgrade-based NGO which asked Kosovo Foreign Minister Hashim Thaci to visit the Serbian capital for a conference has revoked the invitation, blaming what it said was political pressure.