KOSOVO INDEPENDENCE MAY BE PROCLAIMED BEFORE FEBRUARY 18

PanARMENIAN.Net
30.01.2008 18:48 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Kosovo will declare independence from Serbia with
Western backing the weekend after the February 3 Serbian presidential
election if the nationalist candidate wins, political sources said
on Wednesday.

"If Tomislav Nikolic wins, it’s the 9th or 10th," a senior political
source said on condition of anonymity.

A second source confirmed that if pro-Western incumbent Boris Tadic
wins the knife-edge contest, ethnic Albanians in the breakaway province
would be expected to wait at least another week, declaring on February
17 at the earliest.

The major Western powers are "pushing for February," one of the sources
added. NATO’s 16,000-strong peace force is braced for possible unrest,
and a potential backlash by Serb-dominated north Kosovo where Serbs
promise to reject independence.

European Union foreign ministers expect next month to approve the
deployment a 1,800-strong police and justice mission over a 4-month
transition from the United Nations authorities that have run Kosovo
since the 1998-99 war.

Western diplomats say some of the 27 EU member states would favor
delaying independence until late February or early March if Tadic
wins Sunday’s tight run-off election, keen to help him control the
inevitable political fallout from the loss of what many Serbs regard
as their religious heartland.

Moscow and Europe stake on Boris Tadic.

A senior Western diplomat told Reuters that victory for hardliner
Nikolic, whose party leader is standing trial for war crimes stemming
from the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, would undermine any
calls for a delay on Kosovo.

"Expect that if Nikolic gets in, the process will be speeded up,"
the diplomat said, Reuters reports.