SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO: Consensus on Kosovo Reached 2005-05-25 17:55:47 The Serbian government has unanimously adopted the basic principles for the participation of the Serbia-Montenegro delegation at the meeting of the United Nations Security Council, which will be held on May 27.
The meeting yesterday was attended by top government officials, including Serbian President Boris Tadic, Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Affairs Minister Vuk Draskovic and Kosovo Coordination Center Chief Nebojsa Covic. It was agreed upon that a basic protection of the principle rights of Serbs and other non-Albanians has not been implemented, nor have the standards of free movement, that an elementary protection of their property does not exist, and that Serbs are open to random acts of violence against them. In addition, the return of Serb refugees to their homes in Kosovo has not been implemented, and according to UNMIK, only three percent of Serb refugees have returned to their homes. The government has also stated that it is ready to begin immediate dialogue with officials of the temporary institutions of the Kosovo government and that Serbian officials will accept invitations to talks without any further conditions. The Serbian government also states that the talks should be held in the place where the problems exist, in Kosovo. Kosovo Serb official Oliver Ivanovic said that Kosovo Serb officials should have been called to participate in the discussion held yesterday. "Because of this, I am afraid that the platform may contain too many political statements and evaluations of whether standards have been implemented or not, but there will be many important elements missing." Ivanovic said, continuing, "For example, that the homes in Obilic are not yet restored, that people have not returned, that there are still no indications or announcements that they will be able to return. There will not be statistics on how many people are currently in the Obilic school center and are not sure when they will be able to return to their homes, that number is 157. There will not be information on how many homes have yet to be restored. I think that talking about standards is rather abstract, I think standards compromise the essential approach of the international community, who insist that standards are a means of reaching status talks, instead of promoting standards as a way of thinking." Ivanovic told B92 that it seems that Belgrade does not seem to understand that the international community wishes to solve problems in Kosovo in as short of an amount of time as possible. "It is obvious that our government does not understand that the world is tired of the Kosovo problem and only concrete information can possibly turn their attention to the problems and convince them that that the problem should not be rushed into. They will easily pass by political qualifications. Unfortunately, I think that we are late as usual with our diplomatic activities and individual officials of the government should have begun preparation for this a lot earlier. All I can laud is that a clear and defined stance on 'more about autonomy, less about independence' has been reached by the government." Ivanovic said. Kosovo institutions expect independence The temporary institutions in Kosovo expect that Kosovo will receive a positive evaluation of the implementation of standards at the May 27 UN meeting, and that a special emissary will be named to assess the progress in standards which the UN has asked Kosovo politicians to implement. Kosovo Presidential Representative, Muhamed Hamiti, said that the Security Council meeting should open the door to a process which will eventually lead to the independence of Kosovo. "We expect the Security Council to attest to the progress which has been made in Kosovo and to open the path to what is called an all-encompassing assessment of standards and the beginning of the process of finalizing Kosovo's status, which we call the closing of the process for the independence of Kosovo, because that would be the optimal solution." Hamiti said. "The mother of all standards" On the other hand, US State Department High Official Charles English, Director of the South Easter European Sector of the State Department, said last night at a conference dedicated to Kosovo held at the Woodrow Wilson Center, that securing the rights of the Serbian minority in Kosovo is the most important test for reaching democratic standards and is "the super standard and the mother of all standards." He said that the American approach to Kosovo entails "carefully agreed upon and united politics within the Contact Group and with the support of the UN, with the goal of solving the status crisis in Kosovo and bringing peace and stability to the region of southeastern Europe." English reminded that the Milosevic regime was not able to establish rule in Kosovo because it did not pay attention to the interests and demands of the majority, and that chaos ensued after his regime was put down by the intervention of NATO forces. "That is when gangs ruled the region, who took revenge after decades of minority government ruling the majority. Some say that at that time, hundreds of thousands of Serbs and other minorities were force from their homes in that period alone. This could have been called an orgy of revenge. The international community was shocked by the fact that the tyranny of the minority was instantly replaced by the tyranny of the majority." English said. Source: Radio B92 www.seeurope.net http://www.antic.org Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BalkanNews/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
