Nov 27, 2007

Kosova: Last Round of Talks


With the international community exerting pressure for an agreement as the UN deadline is approaching, leaders of Serbia and of Kosovo are discussing behind closed doors for the future status of the region.

With the international community exerting pressure for an agreement as the UN deadline is approaching, leaders of Serbia and of Kosovo are discussing behind closed doors for the future status of the region.

Below is an article published by AND Kronos International: 

Kosovo ethnic Albanian and Serb leaders were due to on Monday [26 November 2007] to begin three days of high-levels talks in the Austrian spa town of Baden in a final attempt to reach a negotiated settlement on the future status of Serbia’s breakaway Kosovo province.

“We have come here with best intentions to negotiate with the delegation of Kosovo Albanians to reach a mutually acceptable solution which would secure peace and stability,” Serbia's president Boris Tadic told journalists upon his arrival in Baden. 

“The ball is now in the court of the Kosovo Albanians,” Tadic added.

Serb and ethnic Albanian negotiators have remained deadlocked over Kosovo's future status in over a year of internationally mediated talks. 

Majority ethnic Albanians insist they will accept nothing short of independence. Serbia on the other hand says it will never recognise Kosovo if it declares independence unilaterally - as ethnic Albanian leaders are threatening to do.

Belgrade has signalled it favours broad local autonomy for the province instead. Ethnic Albanians outnumber remaining Serbs in Kosovo by 17 to one. 

The Baden meeting is being held behind closed doors and no statements were expected until it concludes on Wednesday [28 November 2007].

It is the final meeting in the current round of talks. Serbia being represented by president Boris Tadic and prime minister Vojislav Kostunica, and Kosovo by president Fatmir Seidiu and premier Agim Ceku. 

The international mediating 'troika' made up of United States, European Union and Russian diplomats, has asked both delegations not to make any statements until the meeting is over.

The troika, comprising US diplomat Frank Wiesner, the European Union’s Wolfgang Ischinger and Russia’s Aleksandar Bocan Harcenko, has mediated a fresh round of talks in recent months aimed at hammering out an agreement, but have failed to achieve any progress. 

The Baden meeting is the last encounter between the two delegations, before the troika submits a report to the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon on 10 December [2007].

Responding to ethnic Albanian threats to declare independence unilaterally after 10 December [2007], Serbian leaders have said they would declare this “null and void”. 

The United States and some European countries have said they would recognize Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence nevertheless.

Russia, Serbia’s ally, earlier this year blocked in the UN Security Council an independence plan forged by former UN negotiator Martti Ahtisaari. 

Russia's Harcenko told Belgrade daily Blic on Monday “the chances for a breakthrough don’t exist” at the Baden meeting, but he said he hoped there would be “some progress.”

“Pristina is going to the last meeting with a clear vision and will once again present its stance on relations between Serbia and Kosovo as two independent states,” said a member of Kosovo delegation Skender Hiseni. 

Belgrade wants to retain the province at least officially within the country’s borders as stated in UN Security Council resolution 1244.

The European Union is still divided on the issue of Kosovo independence, but former US envoy for the Balkans, Richard Holbrooke, said this week that Washington and most EU countries would recognise Kosovo after 10 December[2007]. 

“A few weeks later, Kosovo government will proclaim long awaited independence” and it will have the support of Washington and most of EU countries, Holbrooke said. 

Kosovo has been under UN control since 1999 when NATO airstrikes in 1999 drove out Serbian troops from Kosovo amid ethnic fighting and gross human rights abuses during a two-year war with guerrillas.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro. Thousands of people died in the conflict.