UN Kosovo plan 'failed', new negotiations needed: Russia
<http://www.afp.com/english/home/> AFP Published: Thursday April 19, 2007 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday that a UN plan for supervised independence for Kosovo had failed and called for new talks between Belgrade and Pristina over the future status of the disputed province. Lavrov, who was in Belgrade ahead of a United Nations Security Council debate on UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari's recommendation to grant Kosovo internationally supervised independence said: "Mr Ahtisaari's plan has failed". The plan "failed to take into a consideration the interest of one side," Lavrov charged following a meeting with outgoing Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. Belgrade has flatly refused Ahtisaari's plan and openly accused him of supporting the call for independence from Kosovo Albanians, who make up the majority of the province's population of almost two million. Ahtisaari's plans went to the Security Council after more than a year of largely fruitless negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina. Russia and Belgrade want further negotiations on the future status of the disputed province in order to try to reach a compromise between Serbia and Kosovo Albanian leaders. "Russia firmly supports negotiations as there will be no stable solution without an agreement, and to reach it negotiations are necessary," Lavrov said. Kosovo, technically still a Serbian province, has been administered by a UN mission since mid-1999 when NNTO bombing helped to end a bloody Serbian crackdown on the province's ethnic Albanians. Earlier, Lavrov warned against any attempts to unilaterally recognise Kosovo's independence, reasserting Russia's opposition to US plans to help the province split from Serbia. "We are very much interested in the stability of the Balkans and Serbia and that stability could be violated by any attempt to unilaterally recognise the independence of Kosovo," Lavrov said. Speaking after talks with Serbian President Boris Tadic, Lavrov said that "any solution related to the problem of Kosovo must be acceptable for Belgrade and Pristina." "Any attempt at a unilateral solution that would be imposed is absolutely unacceptable," he said. Describing the talks with Lavrov as "very, very important," Kostunica said Russia and Serbia "equally oppose any attempt to seize a part of the Serbian territory, Kosovo." Tadic also welcomed the Russian stance, saying Kosovo's independence would set "a dangerous precedent" and warning that "any form of independence for Kosovo is absolutely unacceptable to Serbia. "Serbia believes that establishing such a solution would be a dangerous precedent that would have serious consequences for the stability of the Balkans and other regions," Tadic added. Lavrov's visit comes just days after US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns said Washington plans to co-sponsor a UN Security Council resolution paving the way for Kosovo's independence. "We must now act quickly in the next weeks and months to finish the job by helping to lead Kosovo to independence," Burns told a US Congress panel on Tuesday. In the coming weeks, the UN Security Council is to debate a Kosovo independence proposal unveiled last month after a year of fruitless talks between Belgrade and Pristina. Belgrade hopes at least nine of the Council's 15 members, including veto-wielding Russia and China, will block any new resolution that would strip Serbia of sovereignty over the province it sees as the country's historic heartland. Such a resolution would enable Kosovo's ethnic Albanian-dominated parliament to declare independence, which would in turn be recognised by countries that support it. Asked whether Russia would veto a UN Security Council resolution, Lavrov said Moscow would "decide when a draft of the resolution becomes available." Under the Ahtisaari proposal, the European Union and NATO would supervise Kosovo's independence. However, along with Russia, EU members like Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain also have misgivings about imposing a solution to Kosovo's status that is unacceptable to Serbia. http://rawstory.com/news/afp/UN_Kosovo_plan_failed_new_negotiati_04192007.html [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
