February 07, 2007

KiM Info Newsletter 07-02-07

Kosovo: Serbian President Asks for Postponement of Status Talks

Belgrade, 6 Feb. (AKI) - Serbian president Boris Tadic said on Tuesday he would ask for the postponement of talks on the status of breakaway Kosovo province, whose majority ethnic Albanians demand independence, until the new parliament is installed following Serbia's 21 January elections. Serbs have slammed top United Nations envoy to Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari's recently unveiled plan which appears to pave the way for independence for Kosovo - while it has been greeted with elation by ethnic Albanians.

President Tadic in consultation with Serbia's political leaders

"I will call on the ambassadors of the Contact group member countries ask for the Vienna talks to be resumed when the new Serbian parliament sits," Tadic said. "That means a postponement of about ten days," he added.

Ahtsaari had called a meeting of ethnic Albanian and Serbian leaders on 13 February to discuss his plan, which he presented last Friday to Serbs in Belgrade and ethnic Albanians in the Kosovan capital, Pristina.

The six nation Contact group of international mediators on Kosovo, comprising the United States, Great Britain, Italy, France, Germany and Russia, is supposed to okay the proposal before it is passed to the UN Security Council for approval, probably in March.

The leaders of all parliamentary parties at a meeting with Tadic on Monday agreed that the new parliament should debate the blueprint for Kosovo, which has been under UN control since 1999, after NATO airstrikes drove out Serb forces amid ethnic fighting and gross human rights abuses.

Serbs and ethnic Albanians remain diametrically opposed over Kosovos'

future. Belgrade opposes independence for Kosovo, insisting on the inviolability of the existing state borders and offers ethnic Albanians broad autonomy instead. But Kosovo ethnic Albanian leaders have said they would settle for nothing short of independence. Ethnic Albanians form 90 percent of the population.

The European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Monday that a decision on Kosovo's future status would be imposed if Belgrade and Pristina fail to reach agreement. Solana visited Moscow with German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner to rally Russian support for Ahtisaari's plan.

Russia insists that a solution should be reached through negotiation, and Serbia has placed great hopes on a possible veto by permanent Security Council member Russia to block Kosovo's independence. But Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said at the weekend that Moscow had never made such a commitment.

Solana, Steinmeier and Ferrero-Waldner will on Wednesday visit Belgrade.

Tadic said he would ask European leaders and special American envoy to the talks, Frank Wiesner, for the talks on Ahtisaaris' proposal to be put back.

Wiesner is due on Tuesday in Belgrade amid shuttle diplomacy over Kosovo.

Kosovo: Serbia reels from shock of UN Envoy's Plan

Belgrade, 5 Feb. (AKI) - Serbian politicians and the public have reacted with shock to top United Nations envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari's recently unveiled plan for the future of Kosovo which appears to pave the way for the breakaway province's independence. President Boris Tadic called an urgent meeting of leaders of all parliamentary parties on Monday to chart a common stand on the course of action, after he received Ahtisaari's document in Belgrade on Friday and has signalled he will never accept Kosovo's independence.

Caretaker prime minister Vojislav Kostunica, who refused to see Ahtisaari when he was in Belgrade last Friday, has meanwhile proposed the formation of a "concerted" government, including all parliamentary parties, to demonstrate national unity in the defence of Kosovo. The province has special significance for most Serbs, who consider it the birthplace of their state.

The blueprint allows Kosovo access to international bodies normally reserved for sovereign states, and allows it to raise its own flag, with its own national anthem, while offering guarantees for Serb and other non-Albanian minorities. It was greeted elatedly by Kosovo's overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian majority.

Although Ahtisaari's proposal was more or less expected, the document nevertheless caused shock and dismay among Serbs that 15 percent of the country's territory could be forcibly snatched away.

"Even the worst pessimists didn't expect that Ahtisaari's plan would be so bad and unacceptable for Serbia," said prominent political analyst Djordje Vukadinovic. Though the word 'independence' is not directly mentioned in the document, all analysts and politicians agreed that in effect it meant the creation of a new Albanian state on Serbian territory.

Tadic, who like Kostunica has steadfastly opposed Kosovo independence, has nonetheless advocated treading carefully in negotiations with the international community, has said he will never approve the plan. Kostunica, who has repeatedly accused Ahtisaari of anti-Serb bias, claims the former president of Finland has exceeded the mandate given him by the UN.

Ahtisaaris proposal "violates the UN Charter and the principles of the international law on which peace and security in the world rest. That means that Ahtisaari's proposal is illegitimate," he said. "Based on the constitution of the Republic of Serbia, the parliament now must determine further steps that Serbia will take," he added.

One of the problems is that the outgoing parliament is being dissolved and the new one, elected in a 21 January general election, hasn't yet been constituted. Likewise, Kostunica's outgoing government claims it doesn't have a mandate to participate in further negotiations until a new government is formed. Because of disagreements within the four-party 'democratic bloc'

analysts believe the country's political forces may be unable to form a governing majority and the elections may have to be re-run.

But according to Ahtisaari's timetable, he will call for another meeting of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian and Serbian leaders on 13 February in Vienna, in an attempt to bridge the gap between the opposing sides, before sending his plan to the UN Security Council for approval in March. Serbia has placed great hopes on the permanent Security Council member Russia's veto. But Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov over the weekend denied Moscow has ever signalled it would use veto to block Kosovo's independence.

Even the Serbian Orthodox Church intervened with a strong statement, saying Ahtisaari had opted "for might is right, instead of the force of law." The statement said: "Ahtisaari can give away his own property to whomever he chooses, but no one ever authorised him to give away Kosovo."

"A peaceful future can't be built on the right of the stronger, on the dictates of naked force, but only on respect of the principle that all should have the same dignity and equal opportunities," the statement continued.

Zoran Loncar, a minister in Kostunica's outgoing government, said that Serbia was exposed to a "brutal snatching away of its territory", as well as to "various pressures and blackmail," of which Ahtisaari as the author.

"What Ahtisaari is doing is the worst of evils, and it is best for all to reject his paper immediately, instead of wasting our future on the removal of this evil," he concluded.

European officials have hinted that Serbia's drive to join the EU might depend on the degree of cooperation over Kosovo. But after Ahtisaari's proposal, many ordinary Serbs have been saying: "To to hell with the European Union."

Belgrade daily Press summarised these sentiments with a front page banner that read: "No Way!" Daily Kurir concurred by saying "Europe, get lost!" and a front page picture pointing a middle finger towards the EU.

Most of Kosovo's 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority wants nothing less than independence for the province. It has been under UN control since 1999 when NATO airstrikes drove out Serb forces amid ethnic fighting and gross human rights abuses.