Kosovo Albanians reject compromise in Vienna 
Serbianna, February 22, 2007 2:28 PM

VIENNA, Austria-Negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority on a U.N. plan that would put Kosovo under internationally supervised self-rule remained deadlocked Wednesday, a U.N. envoy said.

Martti Ahtisaari, the diplomat who drafted the proposal on the province's future status, said a final round of talks in Vienna began in conciliatory mood but the two sides remained far apart.

"The parties have not moved closer together, we are still facing the same realities," Ahtisaari said.
"Both parties know perfectly well where they stand. We will see in what areas they can see eye-to-eye," he told reporters.

Reflecting the deadlock, Ahtisaari appeared without the leaders of either delegation.

Serbia's delegation later issued a statement saying it "rejected all provisions of the Ahtisaari proposal which are inconsistent with the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia." Serb negotiator Leon Kojen said an alternative offer included a promise of "very broad, extensive autonomy" while keeping Kosovo within Serbia.

The province's ethnic Albanian majority is pressing for full independence, and its negotiators renewed that demand Wednesday.

"We expect Kosovo to become independent," said Veton Surroi, the ethnic Albanian leader heading Kosovo's delegation. "For us, this chapter has ended and this book has been closed."

Surroi accused Belgrade of trying to restart the entire process, something Ahtisaari made clear would not happen after a year of exhaustive talks.

Kosovo has been a U.N. protectorate since 1999, when NATO airstrikes ended a brutal Serbian crackdown on separatists. About 16,000 NATO-led peacekeepers patrol the province.

The final round of negotiations are focusing mainly on technical aspects of Ahtisaari's 58-page draft.

Slovakia's Foreign Minister Jan Kubis, whose country currently holds the U.N. Security Council presidency, told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York he received a phone call about the discussion in Vienna and "unfortunately both sides are uncompromising on the status question" but there was a possibility of movement on the technical issues.

"There is just a hope, just a hope, that on the technical issues ... it would be possible to have some progress, some real negotiations, some exchanges, and to move the portfolio forward in agreeing on certain matters," Kubis said.

At the recent Italian Foreign Ministry conference on Kosovo held in Rome, senior negotiator in the Kosovo Albanian team, Ylber Hasa, threatened a new Balkan war if Kosovo does not gain independence.

"Kosovars believe they already have made extensive compromises," Hasa said. "That does not leave much room for maneuver. If you want to see a new Balkan war, that is the perfect scenario," Hasa threatened.

The talks are scheduled to end by March 10, and Ahtisaari plans to submit the package by the end of March to the U.N. Security Council, which will have the final say.

The proposal would give Kosovo internationally supervised self-rule and the trappings of statehood, including a flag, anthem, army and constitution.

Many ethnic Albanians insist it grants the province's minority Serbs too many concessions while not going far enough toward establishing Kosovo as a fully independent state. Serbia, meanwhile, considers it an illegal attempt to pry away the heart of its historic homeland.

With both sides still so far apart, the chances of an imposed solution appeared to increase, along with the likelihood of a showdown at the U.N. Security Council between the United States, which backs Kosovo independence, and Russia, a longtime Serbian ally with veto power.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sidestepped the issue of whether Russia would veto Ahtisaari's plan, but he told reporters in Moscow on Wednesday that "a decision on Kosovo must be negotiated and must be the subject of agreement by both sides."
 

Serbia, paralyzed by Kosovo, may face new election

Reuters, Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:00 AM ET
By Beti Bilandzic

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Coalition talks are going nowhere following Serbia's inconclusive election on January 21 and there may have to be a re-run of the ballot this summer, as the issue of breakaway Kosovo province dominates political life.

Major parties have held just one round of fruitless meetings with President Boris Tadic and have since not been able even to schedule new talks, let alone forge a coalition deal.

"It would be irresponsible for negotiations to be going on in Vienna (on

Kosovo) while we are busy forming a government," said Dusan Prorokovic of caretaker Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS).

Talks on the last phase of U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari's plan for Kosovo, which would set the Albanian-majority province on a path to independence later this year, started in Vienna this week and are expected to continue to early March.

Kostunica has made himself champion of a last-ditch bid to block independence and preserve Serbia from the loss of 15 percent of its territory, relying on backing from ally Russia, which could veto the plan at the U.N. Security Council.

The West, which intervened militarily in 1999 to end a separatist war in the province and expel Serb forces, backs independence for Kosovars and could recognize their state even if no U.N. resolution is adopted.

Some parties privately accept Kosovo may be a lost cause but they glossed over their differences briefly last week to unite behind a parliamentary resolution opposing independence.

But it was a one-off meeting and the assembly was adjourned indefinitely, pending agreement on a government.

Under the constitution, a government must be formed within 90 days of the convening of the new parliament, otherwise a new election must be held. The deadline is now mid-May.

The hardline Radical Party came first in Jan 21 election but with 28 percent of the vote cannot get together a majority. The pro-Western parties of Tadic and Kostunica are most likely to form the next government, but agreement on terms is by no means a simple matter between them.

Tadic's Democratic Party says it should form the government and wants its candidate Bozidar Djelic to be prime minister. The DSS wants Kostunica to stay on as prime minister.

NO COMPROMISE

"There is an impression the DSS is using talks on Kosovo as an excuse to stall and that is the reason why there are still no serious talks on the government," Djelic told Blic daily.

"The Democratic Party expects a signal from other parties of the democratic bloc, especially the DSS, that they are ready... to start serious talks,"

Djelic said.

But he said his party was not ready to abandon its claim to the prime minister's post, even if it means a fresh election.

"The DS (Democrats) is ready for new elections. We will not back down. Our party is decisive in defending not me as an individual but normal principles of democracy according to which the party that won most votes gets the post of prime minister," he said.

Tadic's Democrats actually came second behind the ultranationalist Radicals with 23 percent of the vote, but no one -- even Radicals leader Tomislav Nikolic -- expects the biggest party to be able to form a coalition government.

Bolton: Kosovo's status cannot be imposed

February 22, 2007 (Tanjug) - Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said on Wednesday that ultimatums or imposed solutions could not be the right way to solve the future status of Kosovo.

Bolton is against an imposed solution to the Serbian province of Kosovo that would be unacceptible to the Serbian government because it is unlikely that such a resolution would ever be adopted by the Security Council.

Speaking for the Voice of America, he said that the future status of Kosovo should be acceptable to all sides.

If one side insists on independence, it is evident that there would be no agreement, Bolton said and added he believed that the Serbian government was prepared to offer a high level of independence to Kosovo Albanians and that he hoped that a negotiated solution would be reached.

Bolton said that Serbia could not be divided without the agreement of its government and that this issue was not in the competence of other countries or the United Nations, because this was the new and democratic Serbia and not Milosevic's old Yugoslavia.

It would be unprecedented if the United Nations interfered in the affairs of a country in democratic development and adopted its own solution, he said and added that China and Russia, each for its own reasons which may not have anything to do with Serbia, would not want a precedent to be set in this way.

Bolton said that many at the United Nations believed that under UN Security Council Resolution 1244, the UN Security Council had the right to impose a new resolution if the solution was not acceptable to both sides.

He said he believed that it would be very unwise if the UN Security Council tried to impose any solution - either Ahtisaari's plan or something else, because Russia or China, or both countries, would veto such efforts.

The UN Security Council should continue putting pressure aimed at continuing with the negotiations, refrain from imposing artificial deadlines and insist on goodwill approach to negotiations by both sides and finding of a solution, Bolton said.

Kosovo Talks Enter Final Phase; March Deadline Set

U.S. envoy says U.N. plan offers best conclusion to Yugoslav wars of 1990s
USINFO

Washington – Talks to determine the future status of Kosovo entered their final phase February 21 in Vienna, Austria, where a U.S. diplomat said a settlement developed by the United Nations offers the best solution to end years of ethnic conflict.

“After years of uncertainty, it is now time for us to resolve the last major unsettled issues related to the breakup of Yugoslavia,” U.S. representative Kyle Scott told U.N. Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari at the Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a major regional diplomatic forum. Scott is the chargé d’affairs for the U.S. mission to the 56-nation OSCE.

Ahtisaari, a former president of Finland, on February 2 proposed that Kosovo govern itself democratically and be allowed to make international agreements while remaining, at least temporarily, under international supervision. Kosovo, a province of Serbia, has been administered by the United Nations since 1999, when a NATO-led military campaign drove out Yugoslav Serb forces after escalating violence and human-rights abuses.

Talks involving authorities from Pristina, the seat of government for Kosovo, and Belgrade, Serbia, began February 21 in Vienna and are expected to continue until March 2, with a final review meeting March 10 before Ahtisaari makes his formal recommendation to the U.N. Security Council by the end of March.

Ethnic Kosovar Albanians, who make up more than 90 percent of Kosovo’s 2 million people, seek independence. Serbia has centuries of deep cultural ties to Kosovo, where an epic battle in June 1389 played a defining role for Serbia’s people. Today, many of Serbia’s most important religious and cultural shrines lie in Kosovo. NATO-led security forces continue to protect Serbian communities and cultural sites, and NATO leaders say they will play a continuing security role during the settlement process.

The United States believes Ahtisaari has “fashioned a proposal that will lay the foundations for a Kosovo that is viable and stable,” Scott said at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council on February 20. The proposal would create a Kosovo “where members of all communities – in particular the Kosovo Serb community – can live a dignified, safe and economically sustainable life; and where those who today are still outside Kosovo can return safely.”

Scott told Ahtisaari that the “status-quo” of an internationally administered Kosovo is “simply unsustainable, and your proposal represents the best, and indeed perhaps the only, way forward.”

Although international parties are assisting with the negotiations, it is up to authorities from Kosovo and Serbia to reach a lasting agreement, Scott said.

“We recognize that the parties themselves bear ultimate responsibility for brining this chapter of Balkan history to a peaceful close,” Scott said. Kosovo and Serbia face “stark” choices -- to “accept and embrace a European future” or “to cling to the disastrous policies of the past,” he said.

“We should not play God and solve the problems for them. But nor should we ignore our responsibility to prevent the region from descending into new conflict.”

Meeting with reporters February 21, Ahtisaari acknowledged that negotiators from Kosovo and Serbia remain far apart on their positions.

However, he said, further delays to the settlement process could lead to widespread violence. On February 10, pro-independence demonstrators clashed with U.N. police in Pristina, and two protesters died as a result of injuries from rubber bullets fired by U.N. security forces. The U.N. police commissioner in Kosovo resigned following the clash. On February 19, a pro-independence group claimed responsibility for a blast that destroyed three U.N. vehicles in Pristina.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer visited Pristina February 15 and warned that the NATO-led Kosovo Force would not tolerate violence.

“If there are people in Kosovo who think that inciting violence could be the answer, they are wrong,” de Hoop Scheffer said, according to the Southeast European Times. “And [Kosovo Force] will prove they’re wrong.”

Pristina Radical Predict Instability In Macedonia

Dnevnik in Macedonian, 23 Feb 07 Skopje

More News Available on our:
Kosovo Daily News list (KDN)
KDN Archive

Earlier Newsletters can be found at: http://www.kosovo.net/erpkiminfo.html 
Photo Galleries of the March pogrom are available at: http://www.kosovo.net/pogrom.html

Our Information Service is distributing news on Kosovo related issues. The main focus of the Info-Service is the life of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Serbian community in the Province of Kosovo and Metohija.

Disclaimer:
The views expressed by the authors of newspaper articles or other texts which are not official communiqués or news reports by the KIM Info-Service are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Translations from local media, reflect personal opinions of individual authors, or opinions of organizations that released the text(s). Please contact the copyright holders for reprinting rights and objections. KIM Info-service is not responsible for accuracy of translated texts, except in case of its own statements and news.

This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material.

Additional information on the Church and the life of the Kosovo Serb Community may be found at: http://www.kosovo.net

If you want to unsubscribe go to the page: http://www.kosovo.net/erpkiminfo.html

Copyright 2006, KIM Info-Service