"The final decision on Kosovo status must be adopted by the UN Security Council on the basis of agreements between Serbia and Kosovo," the ministry said in a statement posted on its web site.
"We insist that the suspension of work in the UN Security Council on Kosovo status does not mean that the issue has been withdrawn from its agenda forever," the ministry said.
"Only a resolution [on Kosovo] adopted by the UN could be considered legitimate," it said.
The latest draft resolution on Kosovo's future was withdrawn from the UN Security Council's consideration Friday over Russia's opposition to proposed independence for the Albanian-dominated Serbian province.
The cosponsors of the resolution now plan to continue talks in the Contact Group on Kosovo, within which the U.K., France, Italy, Germany, the United States and Russia will gather in Vienna on July 25.
French Ambassador Jean-Marc De La Sabliere said in a statement after a Security Council meeting: "We regret ... that it has been impossible to secure such a resolution in the United Nations Security Council. We will therefore put on hold discussions on the resolution."
Commenting on a suggestion that Kosovo is not similar to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, ex-Soviet Georgia's breakaway provinces, where most citizens already have Russian passports, and answering the reporter's remark that "[those regions] did not have ethnic cleansing like in Kosovo," Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said:
"We believe that there are very clear similarities among a number of cases, including those you mentioned, and we believe that we have a very objective and very clear view of the history of Kosovo, which is not as one-sided as one would like it to be."
He said that Russia would participate in the Contract Group deliberations "very actively and very prominently."
"Should the parties reach a compromise, the issue of Kosovo's status may come back to the Security Council," Churkin said.
When asked what leverage Russia will have in the Contract Group where there is no veto power, and how it was going to influence the discussion that would start in Vienna, Churkin said: "You will see what will happen."
