Russian stand clouds UN Kosovo plan

REUTERS 1/16/2007 2:12:8

PRISTINA . A UN proposal due within weeks on the fate of Serbia's Kosovo province will amount to "supervised independence" but it remains unclear how Russia will respond at the UN Security Council, diplomats say.

Senior Western officials have told Reuters the package to be presented by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari after Sunday's general election in Serbia will recommend Kosovo be granted access to international bodies reserved for sovereign states.

Its provisions will clearly imply creation of an independent state under European Union supervision, they say, granting the wishes of Kosovo's 90 per cent ethnic Albanian majority over the objections of Serbia, which says the land is sacred.

Individual states would be free to recognise Europe's newest country, eight years since Nato went to war to halt the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo's Albanian majority.

Ten thousand Albanians died and 800,000 fled during Serbia's 1998-99 counter-insurgency war. Natobombed to drive out Serb forces and the United Nations took control.

"We would like to see the word independence in there," said one senior Western diplomat in the Kosovo capital, Pristina.

"But there are other ways of doing it: You have a package of arrangements that quite clearly amount to independence, or supervised independence, as the outcome.

"And if that's the price that has to be paid in order to secure a Security Council outcome then we're going to have to pay that price."

Russia has threatened to veto any solution to which its traditional Balkan ally Serbia does not agree.

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said on Monday he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin who "assured me by phone that if Ahtisaari's proposal is unacceptable to Belgrade, neither can it be acceptable to the Security Council".

UN officials say Ahtisaari will outline his plan to the Contact Group of six major powers steering Balkan diplomacy - including Russia - in Vienna on Jan. 26, five days after Serbia holds an election pitting reformists against ultranationalists.

"Until we know how the Russians are going to handle this, it's terribly hard to say," the diplomat said of the outcome of the process. "There will be a difficult negotiation of the text of the Security Council resolution."

Sources close to the mediation process said Ahtisaari had been asked to hold fresh talks between the Serbs and Albanians once they receive the plan, in early February.

Talks began one year ago, yielding little compromise. The new round is motivated more by a need to placate Russia and certain sceptical EU members than by any expectation of a deal.

"It is very important that we've done what we can to ensure that the process itself will stand up to serious scrutiny," said the senior Western diplomat.

The final wording of the settlement would be decided at the Security Council.

Solana pledges increased EU presence in Kosovo after settlement of future status

Associated Press: Monday, January 15, 2007 7:41 AM

BRUSSELS, Belgium-The EU will remain engaged in the affairs of Kosovo whether the region breaks away from Serbia or remains technically part of that nation, the union's foreign affairs chief said Monday.

"We are ready, we are prepared ... because we want to remain engaged whatever the contents of the (U.N.) resolution," Javier Solana told reporters after meeting with Kosovo's president, Fatmir Sejdiu.

U.N. negotiator Martti Ahtisaari is expected to deliver his recommendations on the future status of Kosovo soon after Sunday's parliamentary elections in Serbia.

Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority insists that the province of 2 million people, a U.N.-run protectorate since a brief war in 1999, should become an independent state, but Belgrade is adamant that it must officially remain part of Serbia, albeit with a wide autonomy.

The final unresolved issue leftover from the violent breakup of the Yugoslav federation has serious international implications because any U.N.-approved move to grant Kosovo independence or greater autonomy is likely to be regarded as a model by independence-minded regions elsewhere in the world.

Diplomats expect that Ahtisaari's proposal, which must be approved by the U.N. Security Council, will include some form of provisional independence which would allow the international community to monitor events in the province for several years before it becomes a fully independent nation.

"We will continue increasing our engagement because we want Kosovo to be stable in order for the region to be stable," Solana said.

He declined to elaborate, saying the exact size and form of that engagement would depend on the specifics of the U.N. resolution. But many experts expect that the EU will deploy about 1,000 policemen in the province and will base about 100 civilian staffers there during the interim period.

Sejdiu said Kosovo's government will welcome a continued presence by NATO, the EU and other international bodies that will replace the transitional U.N. political and military presence there.

"You know our determination which is to see an independent Kosovo integrated into European structures," he said. "We want to see stability of Kosovo maintained and that Kosovo becomes an important factor in regional stability."