Kosovo Talks Begin Amid Bitter Divisions
By WILLIAM J. KOLE
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -
Kosovo's prime minister vowed Thursday to declare independence unilaterally if
internationally brokered talks do not "open a way for us," staking out a tough
position as the latest round of negotiations began in Vienna.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership and Serbia's government remain bitterly
divided on the future status of the province, and officials said a breakthrough
was unlikely.
The breakaway province's majority Albanians refuse to budge from their demands
for full independence from Serbia, and the Serbs are insistent on retaining
Kosovo as part of their territory.
That deadlock raises the likelihood of a dramatic showdown in December, when
120 days of last-ditch negotiations called by U.N. Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon expire - and the international community is confronted with the
possibility that Kosovo's Albanians will make a play for statehood on their
own.
Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku told The Associated Press: "No more delay. We
cannot afford further uncertainty. We need a decision."
Ceku said he would press for the talks to "open a way for us to declare
independence." If that doesn't happen, he said, "we have to declare, and we are
going to ask the international community to recognize us."
But Serbia's minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, said his delegation would
offer only "essential autonomy," and Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica
urged the world not to allow Kosovo to break away.
"The Serbian government will annul any act of unilateral independence,"
Kostunica warned in Belgrade.
Veton Surroi, a member of the Albanian delegation, described Thursday's talks
as "fruitful" but underscored the growing impatience among Albanians, who
account for 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million people and expect independence by
year's end.
"We cannot endlessly go on from one process to another," he said. "We're
speaking not about the past. We're speaking about the future."
Although Kosovo remains formally part of Serbia, it has been run by the U.N.
and NATO since 1999, when NATO airstrikes ended a Serbian military crackdown on
ethnic Albanian separatists in the southern province.
A draft U.N. plan would have given Kosovo internationally supervised statehood.
But Serbia bitterly opposed it, and Russia sided with Belgrade, effectively
blocking its approval by the U.N. Security Council.
The latest attempt to get the two sides to agree is being brokered by the
Contact Group, which includes the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy and
Russia.
"It's wrong to expect that revolutionary ideas will immediately emerge" from
Thursday's closed-door session at the Austrian Foreign Ministry, said Alexander
Botsan-Kharchenko, the Russian member of the so-called "troika" supervising
negotiations along with U.S. and European Union envoys.
The troika diplomats, who also include U.S. diplomat Frank Wisner and EU
representative Wolfgang Ischinger, were meeting first with the ethnic Albanian
delegation and then with the Serbian contingent.
A flurry of similar talks is expected in the next few months as envoys shuttle
between Belgrade and Pristina, Kosovo's provincial capital, trying to reconcile
the two sides.
In his statement to the troika, Ceku warned against carving up Kosovo along
ethnic lines.
"Everyone has agreed on the damage that would be caused by partition," Ceku
said.
Ceku said despite the Albanians' insistence on independence, "we are equally
committed to building working relationships with our neighbors. We want to
treat Serbia as an equal partner."
On Wednesday, Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu urged Serbia to forever relinquish
its claim to the province and said he, too, doubts the talks will yield
progress before the troika reports back to U.N. headquarters on Dec. 10.
With tensions rising on both sides, the turbulent region could see renewed
violence if Kosovo does not gain supervised independence, a leading think tank
warned the EU earlier this month.
"With Kosovo Albanians increasingly restive and likely soon to declare
unilateral independence in the absence of a credible alternative, Europe risks
a new bloody and destabilizing conflict," the International Crisis Group said,
urging the EU "to avoid chaos on its doorstep."
---
Associated Press Writers Elida Ramadani in Vienna and Dusan Stojanovic in
Belgrade contributed to this report.
--
Serbian News Network - SNN
[email protected]
http://www.antic.org/
