http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=qw1148995085327B261
Independence for Kosovo means trouble: Serbia
May 30 2006 at 03:47PM
By Douglas Hamilton
Belgrade - Granting independence to Serbia's southern province of Kosovo
against the will of Serbia would destabilise the Balkans, Serbia-Montenegro
Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic warned on Tuesday.
The United Nations is mediating talks on Kosovo's future status, which
Western diplomats say are likely to conclude with a form of independence by
the end of the year. Serbia is adamantly opposed to such an outcome.
"I am very afraid of the possible imposed solution against the will of
Belgrade of turning Kosovo into a state," Draskovic told a news conference.
"The whole region, I think, would inevitably face turbulence."
'The whole region would face turbulence'
The warning comes in the wake of Montenegro's vote on May 21 to end its
union with Serbia, which the European Union at one point opposed, fearing
further fragmentation in the Balkans.
On Monday there were signs this fear was not unjustified, as Serb
nationalists seeking independence for the Bosnian Serb republic from Bosnia
took the Montenegro referendum as a precedent and possible template for
their own campaign.
Legally, the cases of Kosovo, Montenegro, and the Bosnian Serb Republic are
quite different. But Draskovic was warning that if nationalist feelings were
injured, the legalities might be ignored.
Kosovo has been policed by Nato's largest peacekeeping force and run by the
United Nations since 1999, when a bombing war by the Western allies drove
Serb forces out of the province to halt killings and ethnic cleansing by
Belgrade in its war against ethnic Albanian separatist guerrillas.
Kosovo's population of two million is 90 percent Albanian. They are
impatient after years in limbo and want independence this year.
Impatient after years in limbo
Draskovic, in a speech, warned indirectly that granting independence over
Belgrade's head could bring ultranationalists to power and turn Serbia
against the European Union.
"The European lights in Serbia may be extinguished only by a forcible
decision to declare an internationally recognised state of Kosovo within...
the borders of Serbia," he said.
Creating "yet another Albanian state in the Balkans" was a "dangerous
scenario" that Serbia hopes will be "thwarted".
Belgrade is now proposing a 20-year agreement on Kosovo to be guaranteed by
Serbia and the United Nations. It would have a constitution and would run
its internal affairs independently.
But Serbia would retain control over foreign policy, borders and customs,
human rights, monetary policy and the protection of cultural and religious
heritage.
Western diplomats say the Serbian government is in denial, unable or
unwilling to grasp the realities of the Kosovo situation and the will of 90
percent of its people.
Warnings of an unpredictable Balkan domino effect were being revived after
Montenegro, Serbia's junior partner in a joint state union, voted in a
referendum to go its own way.
Its independence dissolves what was left of Yugoslavia, which broke up in
war in the 1990s. Montenegro was one of six federal republics, with a legal
right to secession which it retained in the looser Serbia-Montenegro union
that was formed with EU encouragement in 2003.
Regardless of that legality, however, nationalist Serbs in neighbouring
Bosnia see Montenegro as an encouragement to push their own campaign for an
independence referendum for Republika Srpska, one of Bosnia's two
constituent parts.
The demand was firmly rejected on Monday by Western officials, who warned
the major powers would not tolerate any threat to Bosnia's sovereignty and
integrity as a state.
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