06 08 2007 (AlbanianTimes) Tirana_Albania’s newly elected President, Bamir Topi, met his Kosovar counterpart, Fatmir Sejdiu, on Monday, confirming Albania’s support for Kosovo’s independence.
Sejdiu who is vacationing in Albania is holding a series of talks with Albania’s officials discussing the negotiations with Belgrade over the final status of the province that has a 90-per-cent ethnic Albanian population.
The Albanian President restated Tirana’s support for the plan presented by the UN special envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, which envisions a form of internationally supervised independence for Kosovo.
The Albanian head of state expressed his confidence that the final result of the status process will be the independence of Kosovo. “All Albanian institutions are in the same line with Kosovar institutions when it comes to the status issue,” said Topi during the meeting in Tirana.
Although the Ahtisaari plan enjoys the support of the United States, most western countries and Kosovo Albanians, it is strongly contested by Serbia and its formidable ally in the Security Council, Russia.
Serbia adamantly refuses to consent to any form of independence for Kosovo, offering only autonomy. Sejdiu told the Albanian President that was unacceptable, restating that “the independence of Kosovo and its territorial integrity are not negotiable”.
Kosovo’s leadership has embarked in a new round of negotiations with Belgrade after the US and the EU failed to resolve Russian opposition to a Security Council resolution leading to statehood.
The new negotiations, which follow a year of failed talks in Vienna, are being mediated by the Contact Group, a six-nation organization created to oversee diplomacy toward the Balkans in the wake of the break-up of Yugoslavia. (BIRN)
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