Russian President Vladimir Putin said on January 30 that the future status of Kosovo should be applicable to the frozen conflicts in post-Soviet space as well.

President Putin was speaking while addressing Russian government members. A transcript of this meeting was posted on the Kremlin’s official web-site.

“I want to draw your attention to the fact that this is an extremely important issue for us, not only from the point of view of observing principles of international law, but also from the point of view of the practical interests of the post-Soviet space. All options of the proposed solutions, which you will discuss – and I want you to remind this to [your] colleagues – should be of a universal character. This is very important for the post-Soviet space. Unfortunately, not all the conflicts have been solved in the post-Soviet space and we can not follow the practice, according to which in one case we will accept one principle and in another case another [principle],” Putin said.

In a response, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said: “We will definitely do this, especially when some of our partners in the Contact Group [on Kosovo, which includes the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy] are trying to write a thesis in this document that Kosovo is a unique case which can not create a precedent. So your instructions will be fulfilled.”

“Unique is for those who want to by-pass principles of the international law,” President Putin replied.

South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity has already hailed Putin’s statement as “a principally new approach.”

“This paves the way for a settlement to frozen conflicts,” Russian news agency Regnum quoted Eduard Kokoity as saying.