Serbia asks UN for partitioning of Kosovo

Serbia has formally proposed partitioning Kosovo along ethnic lines for the first time, asking the United Nations to ensure that Belgrade can control key institutions and functions in areas of the newly independent country where Serbs form a majority. In a document sent to the UN in New York, proposed to the UN in Kosovo last week and published in the Belgrade press yesterday, the government in Belgrade insists that Serbia be allowed to control the police, the courts, the judiciary and customs in the Serbian enclaves in Kosovo and in the northern strip around the tense Serb-controlled town of Mitrovica. Described as a blueprint for the "functional division of Serbs and Kosovo Albanians" by the Serbian minister pushing the policy, the proposal is the nearest Serbia has come to calling openly for partition, although it is working on the ground on Kosovo to make the division a reality. The Serbian government of Vojislav Kostunica, which utterly rejects Kosovan independence, never officially urges the ethnic partition since to do so would be to forfeit its claim to Serbian sovereignty over all of Kosovo. But the proposal acknowledges the UN as the sole authority in Kosovo, rejecting the legitimacy of both the Kosovo government and the EU mission that is supposed to take over from the UN over the next three months. Clashes between Serbs and UN and Nato forces in Mitrovica last week left one Ukrainian dead and scores injured. The UN said Belgrade was behind the trouble, which erupted over a Serbian takeover of a local courthouse. Mitrovica Serbs are promising to stage a large demonstration again today in the town, which Serbia has controlled for most of the nine-year UN mission in Kosovo.

I think it is a proposal to organize serbian enclaves and northern part of Kosovo with serbian majority in the way that is close to status of Republika Srpska in Bosnian Federation.

Novosti Publishes Proposed Deal Between Serbia, UNMIK

BELGRADE, March 24, 2008 (BETA) - The March 24 issue of the Belgrade daily Vecernje Novosti reported on a proposed agreement on the joint implementation of U.N. Resolution 1244 between UNMIK and Serbia, which Serbian Minister for Kosovo and Metohija Slobodan Samardzic presented to the international mission.

The title of the document reads “Agreement Between UNMIK and the Republic of Serbia for the Joint Implementation of Resolution 1244 of the U.N. Security Council After the Illegal Proclamation of Independence by the Interim Institutions of Kosovo,” the report said.

The proposed agreement was drafted in cooperation between the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija, and represents a part of the action plan adopted by the government of Serbia, the daily reported.

The proposal confirms the validity of Resolution 1244, which can be enforced through cooperation between Serbia and UNMIK, and commitment to previous agreements between UNMIK and Serbia and UNMIK and the former Yugoslavia.

According to the document, the office formed by the Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija is to be recognized as the successor to the Coordinating Center for Kosovo and Metohija. The goal of the office would be to facilitate the implementation of the program for development in Kosovo and for cooperation with UNMIK and KFOR.

“UNMIK and Serbia concur that they should intensify cooperation in the areas of police, the justice system, customs, transport, controlling the administrative line between Serbia and Kosovo, and religious, historical and cultural heritage,” Novosti said quoting the proposal.

According to the document, Serb police officers in Kosovo would report to local Serb authorities and be under the command of the UNMIK police.

Kosovo Serbs would be entitled to “resolve their own judicial issues, while international UNMIK judges are responsible for cases involving members of different ethnic communities.”

Serbia and UNMIK would commit to contribute to the development of free trade between Kosovo and Serbia proper, while no other trade barriers would be imposed.

“Should any third party establish any trade barriers, the Kosovo Serbs have the right to establish their own customs authority,” the proposal reads.

“When it comes to religious, historical and cultural heritage, monitoring of policy implementation will be performed through cooperation between UNMIK and Serbia, and these forces established in the shortest possible time, with the aim of becoming operational by May 2008,” Vecernje Novosti said.

Samardzic submitted the document to UNMIK on March 16. The coalition partners of his party, the Democratic Party of Serbia, have stated that they had not had access to the document.

http://www.beta.co.yu/default.asp?h=English,en

Unofficially, KiM Minister’s proposal characterized by UN as unacceptable
Samardzic’s agreement far from reality

It is almost impossible that the agreement that Serbia Minister for Kosovo and Metohija Slobodan Samardzic has forwarded to the UNMIK in Pristina is going to be accepted, a ‘Blic’ source at the UN says. The agreement that envisages functional separation of the Serbian community has been characterized as unacceptable and practically not possible to be implemented in the field.

The agreement stipulates respect of the UN SC Resolution 1244 and cooperation between Serbia and the UNMIK mission, but also separation of Kosovo Serbs in the sphere of judicial and executive authority. The agreement does not refer to the Serbs in the northern Kosovo only, but also to all regions where Serbs constitute a majority.
According to this proposal claimed by Minister Samardzic to have been derived from the Action plan adopted by Serbia Government, ‘Serbian policemen would be responsible to the local authorities and act under the command by UNMIK’. The proposal also envisages free trade between ‘Kosovo and the other part of the Republic of Serbia’.
To put it shortly, the proposed agreement is an attempt of reaffirmation of the Resolution 1244. However, experts on Kosovo circumstances claim that this document is a ‘wish list’.
The Minister for KiM has tried by this agreement to reconfirm in the circumstances that occurred after unilateral proclamation of independence, the forms of cooperation with the UN mission as per the Resolution 1244 that Serbia recognizes as valid. Such proposal is also coming at the time when certain international officials announce transfer of authority from the UN onto the EU mission, the latter one being considered by Belgrade as completely illegal.
The agreement also tries to prevent transfer of authority onto Kosovo institutions. However, certain points of the agreement cannot be implemented in the field, especially in other parts of Kosovo and Metohija.
As ‘Blic’ learns the only thing that the Serbs can hope for when judicial system is concerned are the privileges at employment. Serbian judges would be in the majority of Serbian areas while in areas with mixed population the relation between the employees should be balanced even in the cases where Serbs are in a smaller number. The international judges will be in the special court only. That court is to deal with the organized crime and ethnically motivated crimes.
Experts in economy also view the proposed agreement as difficult or impossible to implement in the field. They say that Kosovo Serbs cannot trade separately from Kosovo Albanians.
As expected, Pristina has already opposed the agreement.
Nevertheless, Swedish Foreign Minister Karl Bildt confirmed that negotiations between the Serbs and Albanians in the part concerning the everyday life shall no doubt be led.
Samardzic said yesterday that after the Catholic Easter he would continue talks with UNMIK representatives over the proposed agreement. He confirmed that the agreement was construed in agreement with the Foreign Ministry and that ‘its goal is to define the relations between Serbia and UNMIK in the present situation’.
Although the document stipulates that its author is Serbia Government, it was disputable for some of the ministers.
‘I cannot comment on the proposal since it was not debated at the Government’, Serbia Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac said.
Minister Mladjan Dinkic confirmed what Sutanovac had claimed.

http://www.blic.co.yu/infocus.php?id=1827

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