MOSCOW, February 19 - RAPSI. Russian law enforcement authorities have initiated an investigation in connection with the alleged illegal organ transplants in Kosovo, the Foreign Ministry reported on its website on Tuesday.

Russia is open to cooperation with foreign agencies during its investigation, the ministry reported.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier that the investigation into the alleged organ theft was stalling due to the EU's “non-constructive” stance on the issue.

The allegations first appeared in 2008 after the publication of “The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals,” written by Carla Del Ponte, a former chief prosecutor with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. In her book, Del Ponte states that around 300 ethnic Serbs were kidnapped and taken to Albania to harvest their organs in 1999. The report was sponsored by the Russian group in PACE.

The same facts were presented in a report by Swiss Prosecutor Dick Marty to the Council of Europe. Marty showed detailed routes through which individuals were transported whose organs were later sold on the black market. According to the report, the victims, apart from Serbian nationals, included Albanians, Russians, Moldovans, Kazakhs, Turks and others. Marty also claimed these facts have been known to the international community for a decade.