Kosovars Promise Not to Declare Independence Unilaterally

24 07 2007 Pristina _ Kosovo leaders promised not to declare independence unilaterally after meeting the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, on Monday afternoon in Washington.

“It was a very important meeting, a meeting which has proved the consistency of the United States’ support for Kosovo”, Fatmir Sejdiu, President of Kosovo, said, during a live broadcast from Washington on Kosovo’s RTK public television.

Sejdiu said Rice had clearly reiterated earlier declarations of American support for the independence of Kosovo.

Kosovo has been under UN and NATO administration since 1999, after NATO forced Serbian forces to withdraw from the province, where 90 per cent of the population is Albanian.

A plan drafted by UN special envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, recommended that Kosovo be granted a form of internationally supervised independence.

Russia, Serbia’s ally, has blocked a UN Security Resolution endorsing the Ahtisaari plan. As a result, the issue of Kosovo’s status has been shifted from the UN to the so-called Contact Group of six countries – Britain, the US, France, Germany, Italy and Russia.

US and European officials have agreed to allow 120 days for further negotiations in a last-ditch attempt to reach an agreement.

“We will give our contribution during the negotiations, but we will not negotiate about Kosovo’s independence, because it’s something that cannot be negotiated”, Sejdiu said, during the interview, insisting that independence remained inevitable.

“We have demanded that these 120 days have a clear epilogue and that the epilogue is independence,” Sejdiu said.

Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Agim Ceku, last Friday suggested Kosovo’s parliament might adopt a resolution setting November 28 as a date for declaring independence.

But Sejdiu said that Kosovo would not declare its independence without coordinating with its allies.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Rice had planned to “underline the fact that nobody gains by trying to short-circuit the diplomatic process that is under way”. (Birn)