Serbs and Ethnic Albanians still 'bitterly' divided

Kosovo’s prime minister today vowed to declare independence if internationally brokered talks fail to “open a way for us,” staking out a tough position at last-ditch negotiations on the province’s future status.

Officials said there was no progress in ending the stalemate between Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership, which demands full independence, and Serbia, which insists on keeping Kosovo within its borders.

“There was no breakthrough, and none of us expected a breakthrough,” said Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, the Russian member of the so-called “troika” supervising negotiations along with US and European Union envoys.

The deadlock raises the likelihood of a dramatic showdown after December 10, when 120 days of negotiations called by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon expire - and the international community is confronted with the possibility that Kosovo’s Albanians will make a play for statehood on their own.

Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku said: “No more delay. We cannot afford further uncertainty. We need a decision.”

Ceku said he would press to “open a way for us to declare independence.” If that doesn’t happen, he said, “we have to declare, and we are going to ask the international community to recognise us.”

But Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica urged the world not to allow Kosovo to break away.

“The Serbian government will annul any act of unilateral independence,” Kostunica warned in Belgrade.

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic cautioned against any violence as the talks enter what he called “a very delicate stage.”

“There has to be an absolute commitment to peace. Violence or threats of violence … are absolutely unacceptable,” Jeremic said.

Serbia’s minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, said he offered Kosovo broad autonomy that would give it “more powers than it ever had in its history.”

In an apparent response to Ceku’s remarks, EU representative Wolfgang Ischinger said he obtained assurances that “no acts or statements would occur from either side which might jeopardise our troika process and might be regarded as provocative for the future.” He refused to elaborate.

Ethnic Albanian negotiator Veton Surroi said Albanians, who account for 90 percent of Kosovo’s 2 million people and have waited years for independence, were growing impatient.

“We cannot endlessly go on from one process to another,” he said. “We’re speaking not about the past. We’re speaking about the future.”

Although Kosovo remains formally part of Serbia, it has been run by the UN and NATO since 1999, when NATO airstrikes ended a Serbian military crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in the southern province.

A draft UN plan would have given Kosovo internationally supervised statehood. But Serbia bitterly opposed it, and Russia sided with Belgrade, effectively blocking its approval by the UN Security Council.

The latest attempt to get the two sides to agree is being brokered by the Contact Group, which includes the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia.

US envoy Frank Wisner told reporters the troika would “leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of a settlement.”

Describing today’s session as “constructive and friendly,” Ischinger said talks would continue in mid-September and on the sidelines of next month’s UN General Assembly, and that the two sides would meet face to face “as soon as possible.”

In his statement to the troika, Ceku warned against carving up Kosovo along ethnic lines.

“Everyone has agreed on the damage that would be caused by partition,” he said.

But Ceku said that despite the Albanians’ insistence on independence, “we are equally committed to building working relationships with our neighbours. We want to treat Serbia as an equal partner.”

With tensions rising on both sides, the turbulent region could see renewed violence if Kosovo does not gain supervised independence, a leading think tank warned the EU earlier this month.

“With Kosovo Albanians increasingly restive and likely soon to declare unilateral independence in the absence of a credible alternative, Europe risks a new bloody and destabilising conflict,” the International Crisis Group said, urging the EU “to avoid chaos on its doorstep.”