Moscow, April 09, SPA -- UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with Russia'stop leaders on Wednesday on his first visit to Russia, one of thefive veto powers on the UN Security Council. President-elect Dmitry Medvedev took a firm line in opening talkswith Ban, saying "any attempts to solve international problems inviolation of UN resolutions, as was in case with Kosovo ... arecounterproductive and endanger world stability." The comments were an apparent criticism of what Moscow views asBan's failure to speak out against Kosovo's independence from Serbia,a long time Russian ally. Ban responded testily to the criticism in later comments tojournalists saying he came to Russia hoping for support, "notcriticism." "It is now necessary to approach the issue with the understandingof the fact that returning of Kosovo to the status quo is impossibleand is impractical," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Ban as saying. "Now it is necessary to search for ways of the complicatedsituation," he said. --SPA www.spa.gov.sa/544738