Kosovo Comments Lead to Walkout by Serbian FM 27 08 2007 Belgrade _Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic walked out of an official dinner at an international meeting in an apparent protest over a speech about the future status of Kosovo, Belgrade’s media reported Monday.
Jeremic left the dinner late Sunday attended by more than 100 guests of the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia after he was not allowed to reply to a speech by Martti Ahtisaari, the former UN special envoy for Kosovo, reports said. Kosovo has been run by the United Nations and protected by NATO since 1999, when an alliance-led air war that stopped the Serbian government's crackdown on rebellious ethnic Albanians. Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku attended the opening ceremony of the Bled Strategic Forum, an annual regional meeting, though he was not on the official guest list. Ahtisaari led abortive UN-sponsored talks on Kosovo in Vienna earlier this year and later proposed a solution that would have seen the UN grant Kosovo internationally supervised independence. He said in his address that failure to resolve the Kosovo issue was threatening stability in the western Balkans and a lasting solution was overdue. "Neither a return to Serbian rule, which the majority of citizens would not in any case accept, nor the continuation of political and legal uncertainty under the leadership of the international community, are the right choices," Ahtisaari was quoted as saying. Kosovo's majority Albanians insist on full independence from Serbia, while Belgrade wants to keep Kosovo as a province within its borders. Ahtisaari said a solution should be reached as soon as possible after December 10, when the so-called Contact Group is due to announce the results of additional talks between Serbian and the region’s ethnic Albanian officials. Envoys from the US, EU and Russia, who together make up the COntact Group, recently visited the region for three days to launch the renewed diplomatic push. Russia had previously blocked the Ahtisaari-drafted UN plan. Belgrade's B92 radio reported Monday that Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel pledged that Jeremic will be granted an opportunity to reply to Ahtisaari’s comments. http://www.birn.eu.com/en/100/15/3944/ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
