EU urges Serbia not to link ties to Kosovo Wed Jan 9, 2008 10:30am EST
By David Brunnstrom BRUSSELS, Jan 9 (Reuters) - The European Commission urged Serbia on Wednesday not to link closer ties with Brussels to the European Union's future role in the breakaway province of Kosovo. The warning came in response to a comment by nationalist Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica last week that the EU would have to choose between its relations with Belgrade and with Pristina. Incoming EU president Slovenia said it hoped the 27-nation bloc would be able to sign an agreement with Serbia, if possible later this month, that would be the first step on the road to eventual membership. "The Commission is troubled by the inaccurate presentation of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) in the debate," spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy told a news briefing without mentioning Kostunica by name. "The SAA and all its contents were negotiated between the European Union and Serbia as equal partners and without prejudice to the future status of Kosovo," she said. Pro-Western Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic appeared to endorse that position after talks on Wednesday with EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn and an earlier meeting with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. "The process of determining the future status of Kosovo and the process of the European integration of Serbia are two separate processes. So we couldn't really talk about any deal that would link one with the other because these are not linkable," he told reporters. The question of closer EU ties has become an issue in the campaign for Serbia's Jan. 20 presidential election, with hardline nationalists keen to show they are toughest in defending Belgrade's sovereignty over Kosovo. EU leaders infuriated many Serbs last month by agreeing in principle to deploy police and civilian administrators in Kosovo this year in the run-up to an expected declaration of independence by the province's ethnic Albanian majority. Rehn insisted on Tuesday that Belgrade must still meet a condition of full cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia before the EU could sign the SAA. Jeremic reaffirmed Serbia's contention that it is already cooperating fully with the Hague court, even though it has not yet managed to arrest and hand over wanted genocide suspect Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander. He said he expected the new chief U.N. prosecutor, Serge Brammertz of Belgium, to visit Belgrade in the next couple of weeks. Brammertz's predecessor, Carla del Ponte, repeatedly urged the EU against signing the SAA until Mladic was arrested. (writing by Paul Taylor, editing by Matthew Jones) (([EMAIL PROTECTED]; +322 2876801; Reuters Messaging: [EMAIL PROTECTED])) http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUS119989269986
