BRUSSELS, Belgium: European Union leaders held talks on Friday with Serbia’s President Boris Tadic in an effort to find a compromise to the dispute over the breakaway province of Kosovo.
The US and EU are debating whether to call for a vote in the UN Security Council on a Kosovo independence resolution that Russia has rejected as unacceptable - or to engage in further negotiations to try to win Moscow’s support. Speaking after a meeting with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Tadic said Kosovo’s independence would set “a dangerous international precedent’’ by serving as a model for other separatist regions in the world.
“Serbia is defending its territorial integrity and sovereignty... but do not underestimate Serbia’s capacity to achieve a compromise on this issue,’’ Tadic said.
Officials in Brussels say they are caught between Washington’s insistence that Kosovo be granted independence as soon as possible and Moscow’s implied threat to veto any resolution that would go against Serbia’s wishes.
Barroso warned that the status quo in Kosovo was no longer sustainable, adding that “the future of Serbia is not with Russia or the United States but with the European Union, to be blunt.’’
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is due in Brussels on Tuesday for talks on the issue. This will be followed by a visit on Wednesday by Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Agim Ceku.
“This is the most important issue the EU faces, it is our No 1 foreign policy priority because of its implications for stability’’ in Europe, said Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for the union’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana. Meanwhile, Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the stability of the Balkans would be “greatly enhanced” by a decision on Kosovo’s status.
“We should prevent unnecessary delays in trying to find a solution,’’ de Hoop Scheffer told south-eastern European leaders gathered on Friday in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
He said the plan for Kosovo’s internationally-supervised independence, drafted earlier this year by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari, provides a “fair, firm and comprehensive basis’’ for a Security Council decision.
While Kosovo technically remains a part of Serbia, it has been under UN administration since a 78-day Nato-led air war that halted a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999.
Ahtisaari recommended that Kosovo be granted internationally supervised independence - a proposal strongly supported by its ethnic Albanians, who comprise 90 per cent of the 2 million population, but vehemently rejected by its Serb minority, Serbia and Russia.
Kosovo has become one of the main irritants in the increasingly tense relations between Washington and Moscow. The issue was discussed during this week’s brief summit between George W Bush and Vladimir Putin, but the two presidents gave no indication differences had narrowed.
The latest Security Council draft resolution would give Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanians and minority Serbs four months to reach agreement on its future status. If there is no agreement, there solution’s provisions - initially granting Kosovo independence under international supervision and eventually full independence - would take effect. EU officials have said they may offer to host another round of “proximity talks’’ between Serbs and Albanians in Brussels starting in September. Another possibility would be to replicate the 1995 talks at a US air force base in Dayton, Ohio, which ended the war in Bosnia, by bringing together all international players at a location in Europe, officials said.
Serbia has indicated it would be willing to return to talks on condition that they are “open and fair,’’ meaning it would not accept Kosovo’s independence in case the negotiations fail. But Albanian politicians have warned about renewed unrest in the province if independence is put off indefinitely, and some have argued they should go ahead and declare independence unilaterally.
(the news)
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