Russia is calling for the closure of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, accusing it of political bias, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was quoted by Russian media as saying in Moscow on Wednesday.

We have been calling for its closure for a long time. It has fulfilled its function, but far from perfectly, Lavrov said at an annual press conference on Russian foreign policy. He said that the ICTY was unjustifiably stricter with the accused Serbs than it was with the accused from other ethnic groups, citing the Bosniaks.

Lavrov said that Russia was willing to provide legal aid to Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj, who is on trial at the ICTY for war crimes committed in Croatia, Bosnia and the Serbian province of Vojvodina in the early 1990s.

If necessary, we are ready to provide assistance in accordance with the existing agreement on cooperation with Serbia, he said.