designate Hashim Thaci said on December
10 that independence for the territory was
weeks away.
Photo: REUTERS
Serbia will not trade its determination to keep breakaway Kosovo within its borders for potential membership of the EU, deputy prime minister Bozidar Djelic said in Belgrade on December 10.
In the worst-case scenario, the prestige of European Union member countries will be ruined in Serbia, and we always have to bear in mind what is in Serbias national interests, Djelic told reporters.
Djelics remarks came at the end of a 120-day period set by the United Nations for the latest phase of talks over the long-term status of UN-run Kosovo.
The talks, chaired by a troika of negotiators from the United States, the European Union and Russia, ended in deadlock late last month.
In their report on December 7, the three envoys said that that the negotiations had foundered over the two sides unwillingness to compromise.
The Kosovo Albanians want independence; Belgrade is not prepared to concede more than broad autonomy.
Kosovo has been under UN administration since 1999, and following two years of talks between Belgrade and Pristina aimed at reaching agreement on its political status, a declaration of independence is now considered likely, in co-ordination with Western powers.
When former UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari announced a plan for internationally-supervised independence, Russia threatened to veto any such move in the Security Council, and additional talks were organised under the aegis of an international troika.
Djelic said that European integration was in Serbias national interest, but added that the EU is not a country, nor a UN member, nor will it be a part of the Kosovo process.
That [determining Kosovos future] belongs to the UN, and all its members and not to the EU in any way, he said.
Since the ouster of former president Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, the new Serbian authorities have been seeking to boost ties with the West, including the EU and Nato.
Last month Serbia initialled a key pre-membership Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU, following months of stalling over Belgrades inability or unwillingness to apprehend suspects for war crimes committed during the 1991-99 Balkan wars and hand them over to the UNs war crimes Tribunal.
Top Serbian officials have repeatedly said they are not willing to relinquish Kosovo, considered by many Serbs as the heartland of their medieval civilisation, in exchange for speedier entry to the EU.
The mood in Pristina
On December 10, about 3000 people, mainly students, demonstrated in Pristina to demand that Kosovos assembly should declare independence within a month.
The demonstration was held to mark the expiry of the negotiating period on Kosovos long-term status.
We want our Parliament to declare independence without any further delay, and we call on the international community to recognise independence as the best solution for Kosovo, said one of the principal organisers at the start of the demonstration.
Not everyone shared the demonstrators confidence.
I dont want to join the demonstration, because everything will be in vain, and independence will never be achieved, one pensioner watching the youthful crowd told Balkan Insight.
Petrit Nimani, the leader of the Albanian Students Group, told the gathering that the best negotiated compromise that Kosovo offered was the Ahtisaari package, and now it is time unhesitatingly to declare independence.
Nimani said that January 10 should be the deadline by which the Kosovar authorities declare independence.
We are angry at both parties the international community, which is playing with our patience, and our own government, which is not moving fast with the only possible step a declaration [of independence], another of the young organisers, who declined to give his name, told Balkan Insight.
Most Kosovo Albanians now seem impatient to see a prompt declaration of independence.
Earlier, on December 6 as Serbian authorities prepareed measures against Kosovo and any countries that recognise its expected unilateral declaration of independence, diplomats warned that such moves were likely to backfire.
As the December 10 deadline approached, there was mounting speculation about how the Serbian government would respond to Kosovos anticipated declaration of independence.
Facing the prospect of losing about 15 per cent of its territory, Serbia seemed ready for a list of measures, such as sealing the border with Kosovo and severing or downgrading diplomatic ties with the countries that recognise the self-proclaimed independent state.
Violence on the ground cannot be excluded, but top state officials have said there would not be any military action.
Serbian foreign minister Vuk Jeremic said on December 4 that Belgrades diplomatic response to the recognition of the breakaway province would be within a wide spectrum from the very mild to the very tough, the toughest one being cutting off diplomatic relations with countries which violate the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia.
Speaking to the Serbian parliament, Jeremic said that there were seven levels of retaliatory measures, all of which had been sent to the government for consideration, but he added that they were a state secret which he could not discuss in public.
A source from the Serbian government told Balkan Insight that all other ministries submitted plans to the ministry for Kosovo, but there is no leak whatsoever.
Kosovo Albanian leaders say they do not fear any possible measures by Belgrade either in the medium or longer term.
The international community, though seemingly not united on the recognition of Kosovos independence, has signalled that it believes that independence will happen.
And it has unofficially warned that any serious counter-measures by Belgrade could only make life more difficult for Serbia.
The message in Belgrade
Meanwhile, Belgrade is plastered with huge billboards carrying photos of famous world leaders from Abraham Lincoln to George Washington and John F Kennedy, from Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill to Willy Brandt. Next to some of their legendary remarks, the words Kosovo is Serbia have been added.
Following the fruitless negotiations which ended in Austria on November 28, Kosovo leaders and most western countries remain in favour of the option of Kosovos internationally-supervised independence, as proposed by Ahtisaari.
Speaking to the Gradjanski list daily in Serbia on December 6, Ivan Vejvoda, director of the Balkan Trust for Democracy in Belgrade, said Kosovo was expected to declare independence some time in February 2008. He said that more than 20, if not all of the EU countries would join the US in recognising the territorys independence.
Such a prediction is not welcomed by official Serbia, which backed by Russia, strongly opposes Kosovos independence, with prime minister Vojislav Kostunica of the conservative Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) insisting that all of Serbia needs to be united and show that for us it is illegal, and that Kosovo is an integral part of Serbia.
President Boris Tadic and deputy prime minister Djelic, both of the centrist Democratic Party (DS), have sent a similar message, saying that Serbia will use all legal and political means against a hostile act and that the ministries were getting ready for the darkest scenario.
That scenario seemingly does not include any military action after defence minister Dragan Sutanovac, also from the DS, said that if Serbia tried to use its army and police in Kosovo, it would face the same defeat as it did in 1999, when Nato bombing forced the then president Slobodan Milosevics troops out of Kosovo.
However, some sabre rattling could be heard from Kostunicas camp. His adviser, Aleksandar Simic, told state television late on December 4 that war is a legal means too.
Simic was referring to the 1990s Balkan wars, saying Serbia had some bad experience and thats why there is a lot of caution and patience now. But, the state interests are also defended by war.
On December 3, Serbian Orthodox Bishop Artemije called for a general mobilisation and for a closing of the border with Kosovo. His war-cry, however, was met with disagreement by Serb MPs who suggested that he should either stay away from politics or organise his own party.
Serbs from northern Kosovo bordering Serbia have also said that some violence could not be excluded, if Albanians from across the river Ibar tried to retake control of the divided town of Mitrovica by force.
Political analysts believe that Serbias most likely answer to Kosovo independence might include an economic embargo on the entity which heavily depends on a wide range of supplies from Serbia. However, they caution that such a move would distance Serbia from the rest of Europe.
Sources within the international community dealing with Kosovo say Belgrade is unlikely to use force but they warn that any retaliation would meet a firm response.
We count on the [UN] Secretary-Generals powers, a diplomatic source close to the issue, told Balkan Insight. He declined to specify, but other sources said that Russias strong opposition to any solution that was unacceptable to Belgrade, and the consequent threat of its veto in the Security Council, were behind such hopes.
If Belgrade really wants to join Europe, the leadership will have to think twice before taking any counter-measures against Kosovo, the diplomatic source said.
Media quoted William Montgomery, a former US ambassador to Belgrade, as saying that a list of responses could include the setting up of Serbian-controlled areas in Kosovo...similar to those set up in Bosnia and Croatia 16 years ago.
The other measures could include protests, closing the roads to Kosovo for trade and traffic and cutting off the power supply to the province. Such moves would also hit Kosovos Serb minority as well as the 16 000-strong Nato-led KFOR peacekeeping force.
Vladimir Gligorov, a professor at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, also believes that Belgrade could opt for a trade embargo on Kosovo, but doubts that would do Serbia any good. The decision to halt trade with Kosovo would thus spoil relations with the EU. That and other retaliatory measures would probably mean a halt to [Serbias] EU integration process with significant consequences to trade and investment policies, Gligorov told the Croatian financial internet portal Moj novac.
The UN Security Council is set to discuss Kosovo on December 19, following the troika report, and Serbia has demanded that Kosovo Albanian representatives should not be allowed to address the session as Kosovos constitutional framework envisages only their presence at the Security Councils sessions.
What option Serbia chooses in the end will depend also on the international community, with foreign minister Jeremic scheduled to hold meetings at UN headquarters in New York. If he gets a clear message that Kosovos independence will have UN support, any harsh response by Belgrade will hurt Serbia the most, the diplomatic source said.
Compiled from reporting by Julijana Mojsilovic of Balkan Insight in Belgrade, and other Balkan Insight staff. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication. www.birn.eu.com
