Thursday, April 14, 2005

Austria's foreign minister visits Kosovo as status of province comes under the spotlight

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Austria's foreign minister visits Kosovo Thursday as international efforts intensify to shape the province's future status.

Ursula Plassnik was scheduled to meet Kosovo's top U.N. administrator Soren Jessen-Petersen, Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi and President Ibrahim Rugova during her one-day visit.

She toured Belgrade on Wednesday as part of her tour in the region, ahead of Austria taking over of the EU chairmanship in 2006.

Her visit to Kosovo comes a day after envoys from the United States, the European Union, Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Germany laid out three key guidelines on resolving the province's disputed status.

The envoys said the province could not return to its pre-1999 status, when it was under direct Serb rule. They ruled out the province being partitioned along ethnic Albanian and Serbian lines and also ruled out the creation of any new union between predominantly ethnic Albanian Kosovo and other countries in the region, such as Albania.

The guidelines leave several options open, including independence or a loose union with Serbia.

Kosovo, formally a province of the Serbia-Montenegro union that replaced the disintegrated Yugoslavia, is been run by a U.N. mission. Ethnic Albanians are demanding an independent state and the Serbs insist it should remain within their borders.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The biggest danger in future for Balkan and Europe's security is Greater Albania! That country would be danger and Europe should prevent their formation well advance. Albanians would not have enough courage to do fomrally but any informal union betwean those two would mean agression to surronding states.

Anonymous said...

Let me guess, u're a serb or some other slav from the balkans.
The greates threat is great Serbia. The world witnessed the treagedy of Greater Serbia more than once in the last decade.

Anonymous said...

Could you elucidate for us how that would be the case?
Have there past invasions in the history of Albanians, projects of ethnic cleansing devised by their academics, or is maybe Rugova developing arms of mass destruction in his residency in Prishtina and CIA doesn't know about it? You seem to have the information, how would 5 million downtrodden Albanians coming together pose a danger to a see of pan-slavic, orthodox brothorhood. Englighten us, please!

Anonymous said...

greater albania is merely a union of the lands that were stolen from albania after we won autonomy from the turks...

greater serbia is a plot started by mother russia in the early 1800's to steal a warm water port...

are the differences too subtle for you?