October 09, 2006

KiM Info Newsletter 09-10-06

Entrenchment of Positions Surrounding Possible Kosovo Status Delay

A Weekly report by BETA News Agency, Belgrade
 
The Belgrade-based Beta news agency was told in Brussels yesterday that Russia had informed the EU that a solution for the status of Kosovo could not be forced on Serbia, and that Moscow would not support such a course of action in either the International Contact Group or the UN Security Council. Moscow, which also communicated its stands to several Contact Group countries and the UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari, further insisted that the negotiations must be continued in 2007 in case a solution to Kosovo acceptable for both sides could not be found by the end of the year. It also explained that any suggestions that would curb the talks with Belgrade and question the rights of Serbia as a sovereign state were unsustainable. In a similar tone, the Russian President’s Advisor Sergey Yastrzhembski said at the conference entitled "Russia and Germany, Hopes and Misunderstanding" held in Germany last Friday that granting independence to Kosovo despite Serbia’s will would create "a very negative" precedent in the international relations. He warned that "Kosovo is a serious challenge for the international community and it is a very important, bitter test of the world community's wisdom," Beta quoted the Itar-Tass news agency. In his reaction to Yastrzhembski’s statement, the head of the Serbian Office for Cooperation with the Media Srdjan Djuric told Beta that Russia's stance that international law must be honored in finding a solution for Kosovo had already produced "tangible results." He added that the adoption of Serbia’s new Constitution represents the absolute democratic right of the Serbian citizens to confirm with their sovereign will that the borders of a democratic state cannot be changed against their will.

Meeting with the Kosovo Deputy Prime Minister Lutfi Haziri yesterday, the US Kosovo envoy Frank Wisner told the Kosovo-based RTV 21 that Washington remains "firmly devoted to finding a solution to Kosovo's status this year,” and added that the US were carefully monitoring the Kosovo situation and saw no reason to postpone its solution, Beta reported. As for the UNMIK chief Joachim Ruecker and Kosovo Premier Agim Ceku, who held their regular weekly meeting last Friday, they agreed that Kosovo is a unique question and that its status needed to be solved by the end of the year in accordance with the Contact Group's principles. Adding that they do not fear a possible postponement, they said to be concerned because they think this could be dangerous. While Ruecker indicated that the Contact Group and Ahtisaari were those who would decide on the process, Ceku insisted that "the signs that a status solution could be delayed are without a doubt disturbing for us and the citizens of Kosovo. This is unacceptable and this would mean the loss of credibility of all the international factors, the Contact Group, and Ahtisaari, who are determined to find a solution during the year." Addressing the same issue, the Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu told Radio Free Europe that, while all the factors participating in the search for a solution were ready to continue the process and were awaiting a proposal from Ahtisaari, the key international negotiator in the process, Serbia desires violence in Kosovo in order to be able to portray the province as an unsafe place that "does not deserve to become a state." Commenting on the announcements that elections in Serbia could postpone the definition of Kosovo’s status, he indicated that "Kosovo postponed the elections that were planned for the very end of the status process, i.e., the end of the year, in agreement with the international community. This is why there is no reason to wait for someone's elections, like these elections in Serbia," Beta reported.

Asked to confirm whether there was a possibility of delaying the resolution of Kosovo’s status, Ahtisaari’s spokesperson Remi Dourlot told the Pristina-based daily Zeri: "We have many meetings with the Contact Group and unofficial meetings with certain members of the group and I can say that Ahtisaari has received no sign of a deadline change." Commenting on the progress achieved in elaborating a proposal for Kosovo’s status, he said he could not "say in which phase we are in, but we are working on the proposal. The Contact Group encouraged us to work on it. Only the previous deadline is in our thoughts."

HELSINKI, Finland, Oct. 9 (UPI)

A U.N. envoy says a breakthrough on the future of Serbia's Kosovo province is doubtful as Serbs and Albanians have entirely opposed stands.

Martti Ahtisaari, the chief U.N. mediator of the Serb-ethnic Albanian talks on the future status of the U.N.-administered province, said he doubts the two sides will agree on a solution to Kosovo as their stands are "diametrically opposed," the Serbian news agency Beta reported Monday.

Ahtisaari made the comments at a seminar about Kosovo in the Finnish parliament.

The Serbian government in Belgrade and Kosovo's ethnic-Albanian leaders began U.N.-led talks in February in Vienna to decide who will govern the province once U.N. administrators and NATO protection troops leave. The talks have achieved no major breakthrough.

Ethnic-Albanians make up 90 percent of Kosovo's population of 1.8 million, with about 100,000 Serbs living in the province.

The Serbian authorities say Kosovo will be part of Serbia forever while ethnic-Albanians insist on independence from Belgrade.

Associated Press: Monday, October 09, 2006 7:36 AM

BELGRADE, Serbia-A chief Serb negotiator in the Kosovo talks called Monday for a "serious revision" of the U.N.-brokered process, including the replacement of U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari, according to a news report.

Slobodan Samardzic, an adviser to Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, said that a "new methodology" is needed in order to reach a compromise between Serbia and Kosovo Albanians on the future status of the contested province, according to the official Tanjug news agency. He did not elaborate.

The negotiations, which started early this year under U.N. auspices, so far have produced no result with both sides entrenched in their positions, the ethnic Albanians demanding independence from Serbia and Belgrade offering broad autonomy for the breakaway region.

On Monday, the chief mediator, Ahtisaari acknowledged that compromise is nowhere in sight because he said both sides remain too far apart.

"The parties remain diametrically opposed," Ahtisaari said in the Finnish capital, Helsinki. "I can't see there will be a negotiated settlement."

But, he added his team "will continue to press forward until all potential areas for compromise have been explored."

Kosovo, formally a Serbian province, has been run by the United Nations and NATO since a 1999 war. The region remains a potential flash point in the Balkans.

The United States and its allies in the so-called Contact Group for Kosovo, which also includes Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia, have sought to wrap up the talks by year end.

Most analysts have predicted Kosovo would be granted some form of independence, despite Serbia's opposition to the secession.

The plans to find a solution for Kosovo this year have failed, Samardzic said, according to the Tanjug interview. He said a different approach and a new envoy are needed next year to push the process forward, the report said.

"The situation will take a new course from Jan. 1," Samardzic was quoted as saying. "I believe this course will entail a serious revision of the entire process by the United Nations and the Contact Group."

In Finland, Ahtisaari failed to specify what would be the next step in case no solution is found for Kosovo at the negotiating table.

But he warned that "Kosovo is the last piece of the Balkan puzzle. Without a lasting solution for Kosovo, there will be no lasting solution for the Balkans."

U.N. negotiator says he sees no solution in Kosovo status talks

Associated Press: Monday, October 09, 2006 9:15 AM

HELSINKI, Finland-U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari sees no solution in the talks on the status of Kosovo because the two sides are too divided, he said Monday.

"I don't see the parties moving on the status issue. The parties remain diametrically opposed," the chief U.N. negotiator in the talks said in Helsinki. "I can't see there will be a negotiated settlement."

"Pristina has been prepared to make clear concessions, but Belgrade has been considerably less so," Ahtisaari said at a seminar on the Balkans organized by a Finnish security policy institute. "My overall assessment of these technical talks is that the prospect for finding a common ground is very limited."

Ahtisaari said the Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo would not reach a pact "at least not in my lifetime."

However, he added that he and his team "will continue to press forward until all potential areas for compromise have been explored."

Kosovo, formally a Serbian province, has been run by the United Nations and NATO since a 1999 war. The United States and the Contact Group for Kosovo, which includes Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia, have sought to wrap up the talks by year end.

But the negotiations, which started early this year, have produced no result with both sides entrenched in their positions, the ethnic Albanians demanding independence from Serbia and Belgrade offering broad autonomy for the breakaway region.

Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, in 1999 negotiated with Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic to end the fighting in Kosovo. Last year, he brokered a peace treaty between the Indonesian government and rebels in Aceh province ending 30 years of fighting in the region.

Ahtisaari is due to report to the United Nations within the next few months on the status of the Kosovo talks. He stressed that an agreement must be reached in Kosovo to bring calm to the troubled region.

"A solution must be found, but that then means that the (U.N.) Security Council must take a stand in the issue," he said.

"Kosovo is the last piece of the Balkan puzzle that the international community has been attempting to reassemble since the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia 15 years ago," Ahtisaari said. "Without a lasting solution for Kosovo, there will be no lasting solution for the Balkans."

From the Kosovo Albanian media (source: UNMIK Media Monitoring, 9 Oct 2006)

Thaçi: Kosovo is endangered by crime and mafia

(Dailies)

During a working visit to the party branch in Gjilan, PDK leaders Hashim Thaçi and Fatmir Limaj said “organised crime and mafia which has penetrated to the highest ranks of the government pyramid are the biggest dangers for Kosovo and not the issue of Kosovo’s status process”.

“I can’t tell you the time and date but I guarantee you that Kosovo will be independent,” Thaçi is reported to have told the party’s membership in Gjilan. He also said status talks will not damage Kosovo.

The two leaders said there is no dilemma that Kosovo will become independent, “but what will happen after the status? Who will stop the criminal gangs that have been installed by this weak government?” Koha Ditore reports.

Limaj was quoted as saying, “For seven years we have been accused as murderers and criminals and many other things, and now it is becoming ever clearer who has carried out the killings, whose are the criminal gangs and the mafia, which constitute a serious danger for Kosovo now and after the status.”

The debate in Gjilan began with calls from some of the party members for the dismissal of Qemajl Mustafa as president of the branch blaming him for “mismanagement” and for creating clans in the party. Party’s senior official Xhavit Haliti asked for an establishment of a committee that would look into the allegations against Mustafa, Express reports.  Several members of the party then left the session.

Mustafa admitted that PDK in Gjilan does not agree with decentralisation process but assured leaders that the party’s presidency enjoys full support for representation in the Kosovo Negotiations Team, Zëri writes.

Thaçi said he came to Gjilan to hear about concerns regarding the processes in Kosovo and not about inter-party divisions. “One country or one people are only once in the history given an opportunity to win independence and PDK has entered the process with outmost seriousness to achieve this,” he added.