Kosovo appeals to the world for recognition

Kosovo’s leaders sent out 192 letters to the world’s nations today asking for formal recognition of its independence.

A sense of suspense gripped the capital Pristina as officials and ordinary citizens alike awaited key backing from the EU and US.

A day after Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership made its historic declaration of independence from Serbia, tensions soared in the north, home to most of the territory’s minority Serbs. An explosion damaged a UN vehicle outside the ethnically divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, and Serbs planned demonstrations there and in an enclave outside Pristina.

President Fatmir Sejdiu played down the fears of renewed unrest, saying the government needed to set about the business of building a democratic country.

“It will be a big day today because we have lots of things that we need to start and finish,” Sejdiu said. “We need continuous work and commitment, and we are fully dedicated to fulfilling the promises to better our state.”

Yesterday the government achieved what a 1998-99 separatist war with Serbian forces could not: They pronounced the disputed province the Republic of Kosovo, and pledged to make it a “democratic, multi-ethnic state.”

The proclamation sent thousands of ethnic Albanians into the streets overnight, where they waved red-and-black Albanian flags, fired guns and fireworks into the air and danced.

Kosovo had formally remained a part of Serbia even though it has been administered by the UN and Nato since 1999, when former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic’s crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists which killed 10,000 people was ended.

Ninety percent of Kosovo’s two million people are ethnic Albanian – most of them secular Muslims – and they see no reason to stay joined to the rest of Christian Orthodox Serbia.

The 192 letters included one to Serbia, but the Belgrade government made clear it would never accept Kosovo’s statehood.

Serbia said it would seek to block Kosovo from gaining diplomatic recognition and membership in the UN and other international organisations.

“The so-called Kosovo state will never be a member of the United Nations,” Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said.

Russia also rejected the declaration and persuaded the UN Security Council to meet in emergency session yesterday in an attempt to block Kosovo’s secession. The council was meeting again today.

The EU and Nato, mindful of the Balkans’ turbulent past, appealed for restraint and warned that the international community would not tolerate violence.

Kosovo is still protected by 16,000 Nato-led peacekeepers, and the alliance boosted its patrols over the weekend in hopes of discouraging violence. International police, meanwhile, deployed to back up local forces in the tense north.

“From today onwards, Kosovo is proud, independent and free,” said Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, a former leader of the now-disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army. “We never lost faith in the dream that one day we would stand among the free nations of the world, and today we do.”

Yesterday’s declaration was carefully orchestrated with the US and key European powers, and Kosovo was counting on international recognition expected to come during today’s meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

But by side-stepping the UN and appealing directly to the US and other nations for recognition, Kosovo’s independence set up a showdown with Serbia – outraged at the imminent loss of its territory – and Russia, which warned that it would set a dangerous precedent for separatist groups worldwide.