BELGRADE’S OFFER UNLIKELY TO SWAY KOSOVO
Slobodan Lekic in New York

Brisbane Times, Australia
Sept 29 2007

SERBIA is prepared to offer its secessionist province of Kosovo
the "largest autonomy in the world" in talks on the future of the
independence-seeking region, the Serbian President has said.

Boris Tadic described as "unhelpful" statements by the US President,
George Bush, and his Administration to the effect that Kosovo will
gain independence at the end of the present negotiating process,
due to finish on December 10.

"These statements are not encouraging Kosovo Albanians to show
flexibility in the talks," Mr Tadic said on Thursday.

He was due to meet Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leaders in New York
yesterday for the first face-to-face talks between the two sides.

They will be mediated by negotiators from the US, Russia and the
European Union.

The issue of Kosovo’s future status has become one of the main
irritants in the increasingly tense relationship between a resurgent
Russia and the US. Washington strongly supports eventual independence
for the province, but Moscow backs Belgrade in its insistence that
Kosovo must technically remain part of Serbia.

The province of 2 million people – most of them ethnic Albanians –
has been administered by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO
waged a 78-day aerial war to prevent a Serbian military crackdown
against Albanian separatists.

Previous negotiations collapsed earlier this year. On Thursday Mr
Tadic said that Serbia was willing to make further concessions, but
would still demand that its "sovereignty and territorial integrity
remain intact".

"We are offering to Kosovo Albanians the best possible rights, which
means the largest autonomy in the world, [including] some elements
of sovereign countries, for example access to international financial
institutions," he said.

But Veton Surroi, a key member of the ethnic Albanian negotiating
team, said there was little likelihood of a deal being reached at the
talks unless Serbia accepts "that our place is in Europe together,
as two independent nations".

Mr Tadic warned that independence for Kosovo from Serbia could create
a precedent that separatists around the world would use to justify
their struggle.

"It would have very serious consequences," he said. "There are many
‘Kosovos’ in the region [including] Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia,
South Ossetia … Macedonia, Bosnia or Kurdistan."

At the United Nations the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice,
met the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, and representatives
of EU nations forming the Contact Group of Kosovo negotiators.

Participants agreed that "the status quo" in Kosovo was unsustainable,
the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, said after the
talks. "It’s the view of all members of the Contact Group that
representatives in Belgrade and Pristina need to engage with the
[mediators] with a real constructive spirit," he said.

Delegates also said that Mr Lavrov, Belgrade’s ally with UN Security
Council veto power, bluntly told Western nations in the Contact Group
to stop saying Kosovo’s independence was inevitable.

One European delegate put the chances of an agreement at barely 10
per cent but said the negotiations could at least smooth the way for
a more amicable separation, even if Serbia was unable to accept the
principle of independence.