Posted on 07/23/2007 10:39:36 AM PDT by Bokababe
Washington/Belgrade, 23 July(AKI) – Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leaders were due to meet in Washington on US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice on Monday to try and clarify the diplomatic impasse over the breakaway province's independence from Serbia.
The Kosovan leaders and Rice will try and chart a way forward on the province's future status after the United Nations Security Council last Friday withdrew a draft resolution granting Kosovo internationally supervised independence.
After repeated efforts to push through a resolution based on the proposal by UN special negotiator Martti Ahtisaari, western powers, which favour independence, decided to shift the problem to a six-nation Contact group for Kosovo. The group - comprising the US, Great Britain, Italy, France, Germany and Russia - should hold a further 120 days of negotiations between Pristina and Belgrade.
Meanwhile German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday proposed that the new talks be coordinated by an international “troika” consisting of the US, EU and Russia. He was speaking to journalists in Brussels, where Kosovo is high on the agenda of a summit of EU foreign ministers. Such a troika would be "the best chance" so far to secure a deal on Kosovo, he said.
Russia, as a veto wielding permanent member of the Council, has blocked several draft resolutions, siding with Belgrade in opposing Kosovo's independence and demanding new talks which might lead to a compromise solution.
The shelving of Ahtisaari’s plan in the UN was greeted in Serbia as a “great victory” for Belgrade and Moscow, but some political analysts have warned the Contact group's brief is not entirely clear.
“The withdrawal of a draft resolution that would have paved the way for Kosovo independence is of exceptional importance for Serbia,” said prime minister Vojislav Kostunica. “It represents a victory of law over attempts to snatch a part of Serbia’s territory away,” he added.
Belgrade opposes independence for Kosovo - which has been under UN administration since NATO airstrikes drove Serbian forces from the province in 1999, amid gross human rights violations and a mass exodus of ethnic Albanians.
Kosovo majority ethnic Albanian leaders have said, on the other hand, that they would settle for nothing short of independence. Ahtisaari unveiled a plan proposing EU supervised independence after 13 months of Serb-Albanian talks ended in deadlock.
Washington has been spearheading Kosovo's independence drive and Pristina Albanian language media said that Kosovo president Fatmir Seidiu and prime minister Agim Ceku would demand that Rice clearly sets a timetable for independence.
Meanwhile, ethnic Albanians where planning demonstrations in Kosovo's capital, Pristina, at which they said they planned to “symbolically declare independence." Ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs in Kosovo by 17 to 1.
Ceku said on Friday that Kosovo's parliament should unilaterally declare independence in November if Ahtisaari’s plan failed, but were cautioned by Washington and the European Union not to take unilateral steps.
After Russia’s last refusal in the UN on Friday, western diplomats said that the search for a solution within the Contact group would facilitate their efforts, because no country has a veto right in the group. “It remains to be seen,” retorted Russian ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin.
Moscow and Belgrade claim that the Contact group may mediate in new talks, but that the final decision on Kosovo's future status still rests with the Security Council.
The watered-down resolution, the third in three months, included a framework that Russia claimed would lead to independence of the Serbian province by stealth.
Decide "Kosovo" or "Kosova" in under a minute , so where is the question mark?
http://www.serbianna.com/columns/borojevic/060.shtml
Is Bush Ceku’s hostage, or is Ceku Bush’s?
By Boba Borojevic
Ottawa , July 23, 2007
James Jatras on the crucial victory in the UN SC
The status of the UN-run Serbian province of Kosovo-Metohija, whose ethnic Albanians are demanding independence, is in the balance because Russia is threatening veto. Some western nations have been trying to push a draft resolution in the Security Council to implement key provisions of UN mediator Martti Ahtissari’s plan to grant “supervised independence” to Albanians living in the Serbian province of Kosovo-Metohija.
Friday, they ran into opposition from Moscow, which had said it would use its power of veto and block the move. Faced with Russian and Belgrade’s opposition the United States and its European allies decided not to have vote on independence in the UN SC and said they would hand the issue back to a six-nation Contact Group. Meanwhile, Agim Cheku, Kosovo Albanian leader announced that he would proclaim Kosovo’s independence unilaterally on November 28.
The news is that Condoleezza Rice, the American Secretary of State, will ask the leaders of Kosovo not to do anything rash. European foreign ministers are also expected to discuss the crisis in the upcoming days. The international Contact Group, which includes the United States, Britain, France and Russia, will discuss what to do next on Wednesday.
James Jatras, director of the American Council for Kosovo, a lobby group based in Washington DC, believes that Washington does not have strong enough support of the European countries for this crucial move.
“If they were determined to try to impose the solution outside the Security Council,” Jatras said, “they would have gone forward with the vote knowing that the Russians would have vetoed it. They would use that as a pretext to say: ‘Now, you see we don’t have any other choice but to try some other way.’
The fact that they did not even do that but rather they pulled back is to me an indication that they don’t have enough strength and the Washington government cannot count on the support of the European countries for a solution outside the Security Council. It means they are taking a step back. They may even go back to blabbing for a while in the Contact Group to figure out what their next step is.”
Jatras doesn’t believe that the Kosovo issue can be settled outside the UN Security Council.
“Certainly it cannot be settled in the Contact Group. Solana said the other day they would figure out something outside of the Security Council and go to the Contact Group. How can the Contact Group settle anything? There is no standing of a Contact Group under any concept of the international law,” explains Jatras.
“The Contact Group has no weight to supplant the statement from the Security Council in the Resolution 1244. It is simply an informal talk shop. They would have to go back to the Security Council or find some pretext for the unilateral declaration on independence and see whether Washington can force that through against the Russian opposition and cause a complete confusion among the Europeans.”
Jatras had said on Ottawa’s CKCU “Monday’s Encounter”this week, that Ceku was coming to Washington in the near future to see what their next move would be.
“Frankly, the big question here is: Is Bush Ceku’s hostage, or is Ceku Bush’s hostage? It is not entirely clear if Bush is now in the position where if Ceku goes ahead with the declaration on independence, will he feel bound to recognize it? To the contrary, is Ceku in the position where he cannot move forward without Bush giving him a green light? It is becoming very clear with the more general collapse of the authority of the Bush administration, not only internationally but also even domestically, that they are going to have trouble delivering promises they had made to Albanians all these years. The latest developments in the Security Council show that neither Moscow nor Belgrade are letting any kind of trickery get pass them. I am glad to see that Belgrade appears to be very united on a very clear and principled position, which will be clearer in any further negotiation that takes place now,” concluded Jatras.
And that's what uncontrolled immigration gets you.
"Uncontrolled immigration", coupled with ethnic cleansing of all non-Albanians. Two hundred thousand Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, and non-Albanians have been driven out of Kosovo since the NATO Bombing in 1999. But the MSM press never mentions that.
Yes, Ma’am.
Just saying that when you get an immigrant population through a border that leaks like a sieve, then they breed like rabbits, when they get to sufficient numbers, they get bold -- and this case, violent and aggressive, driving everyone who isn't like them out.
Not saying that the same couldn't happen here -- it could.
“Rice warns Kosovo against declaring independence unilaterally”
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/23/europe/kosovo.php
It already has happened in many places in the US. Cnn did a special a while back about the 'latino' 18th st gang in LA. If a black man crosses that street he's dead.
We should have learned something from the Serbs.
.......Is Bush Ceku’s hostage, or is Ceku Bush’s?......
That’s an easy question. Ceku is a brutal terrorist, and it is terrorists that take hostages!!!!
Of course, if we develop and exercise some principle, intelligence and courage, we can oppose the terrorists as we should, and get out of the hostage situation.
Civilization, peace, and sanity will come to Kosovo with the Serb army!!!!
More and more (and this is especially after seeing the renewal of Muslim aggressiveness in Turkey) I am thinking it’s time for a renewed Byzantium alliance in the Balkans and Southern Europe along with Russia. For example, we do not need to quarrel over the name Macedonia with our Slavic orthodox brethren.
In unity there is strength.
Don't forget Justice! That's very important as well.
Interesting you mention WWI. Found a neat video on You Tube about WWI, the Serbs, Greeks (& French) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAiGQ3J2oZo
Boka, honorary serb, joan, serb5150 etc... does it affect your day to day living except for some ego-stroking ways? hoplite, why does it matter besides stoking heated online fighting? How many deficiencies and low-self esteem issues do you have? I know your daddy was a beltway insider and you hang on his coatstrings.
Reading these forums are similar to attending Serbian festivals and having guest speakers...people "talking about WW2 and old history"... you know what, get over it and move on. I have and actually feel better about the entire Serbian questions. There is more to life then typing out arguements. A few people need to get a life, ahem hoplite and boka.
Thanks I will watch...
I believe it does matter if Kosovo is take from the Serbs.
For one thing, we know that the Moslem Albanians will destroy and desecrate every Christian church, monastery, and graveyard that they can get their hands on.
I believe setting a precedent by which illegal immigrants can use criminal activities to drive a population from their land that then allow the illegal immigrants to claim it as their own is a dangerous thing to do.
Nothing good can come from having a criminally-minded Moslem state created in the Balkans.
There is more at stake here than just Serb nostaglia.
Because the Jihadists are our enemies and only the Serbs stand against them in the Balkans.
Peace and justice will only return to Kosovo alongside the Serb Army.
And the unpleasant precedent of having those criminal activities abetted, and finally made to succeed, by an axis of outside parties, for their own purposes, and with callous acceptance by all others.
Why is the US State Department hell bent on giving radical islam its own country in Europe? Why is the US State Department FACILITATING a genocide of christians in Kosovo?
Why is the DBM asleep again? This is pulitzer prize stuff about radical islam causing suffering on innocents but not one media person is reporting it.
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