WASHINGTON, May 17 (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday it wants the international community to move more quickly to resolve the status of the Serbian province of Kosovo, left undecided after the Balkan wars in the 1990s.
The No. 3 official at the State Department, Nicholas Burns, will make two addresses in Washington this week about Kosovo to turn the spotlight on an issue that critics say has received little U.S. attention over the last few years.
"We think we're now entering a new stage in our policy toward the Balkans, one that will accelerate the region's integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters in explaining Burns' planned remarks in Congress and at a think-tank.
Kosovo's 90-percent ethnic Albanian majority wants independence, but Belgrade insists the landlocked province of 2 million people should remain a part of Serbia. The United Nations has governed Kosovo since 1999, after an 11-week NATO bombing campaign to halt Serb repression of its Albanian population.
The United States is working to help Kosovo satisfy a list of conditions that the United Nations wants it to meet before the international community can take up the question of its ultimate status, Boucher said.
But he suggested Washington was impatient for the United Nations to conclude that Kosovo has met the standards on democracy and governance issues during a review the world body must make over the next few months.
"We would hope that the standards of democracy and multiethnicity for Kosovo will be changed as soon as possible. And if that is achieved, then the outcome of the (U.N. benchmarks) review would be positive," Boucher said.
Ethnic Albanians rioted in Kosovo last year, torching Serb homes and religious sites, killing 19 and injuring nearly a thousand civilians.
The decision to hold "final status" talks -- on independence or not -- will not be made for several months. But a state department official said: "We all believe it is headed in that direction, we all believe we are coming to a time when we should deal with the status issues."
The Contact Group of major powers involved in the U.N. mission has recommended that Secretary General Kofi Annan appoint Kai Eide, Norway's ambassador to NATO, to decide whether Kosovo is ready for final status talks, a State Department official said.
Eide has been reviewing how to improve the U.N. mission in the province.
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9 comments:
Reuters should clear one thing up:
Ethnic Albanians rioted in Kosovo last year, torching Serb homes and religious sites, killing 19 and injuring nearly a thousand civilians.
They should not have said killing 19 civilians, because this is untrue. What they should have said is:
Ethnic Albanians rioted in Kosovo last year, torching Serb homes and religious sites, in which 19 civilians were killed and nearly a thousand civilians were injured.
This is because the albanians didn't kill anybody, but rather the authorities killed the civilians.
Yeah right. They cilled no one?
Who killed then my school professor? Albanians beat him to death! Both, him and his mother.
Yes the Albanians have always killed thousands of innocent Men, women and children.
Serbia will one day liberate all her occupied lands and then the drug traffiking, women exporting thugs will face Justice.
Failing that there's also an eternity of torment for them in hell. There must be large Albanian area in hell.
The first commentor is wrong. of the killed people nearly half were Serbs and many of the killed Albanians were killed by KFOR when they were about to kill other people. At least two Albanians (in Lipljan) died when the house that they were pilfering was set afire by other Albanians.
Let's see what the US makes of it...
it is unbelievable to read this comments, last march killings can not be justified as matter of fact any killing in this world can not be justified whatever the reason, but it is quite ironic reading these comments, on which side they are on its quite obvious,but i would recommend the commentators just to go through history since of their arrival "imigration" to the "balkans" and especially the last two centuries to this day, and i'm sure they will become very clear who is who -the repressor and the repressed
Last march there were more Albanians killed than Serbs and I'm sure Serbs have nothing to do with this just like they had nothing to do with the killing of children in Kosova, Croatia, and Bosnia. Serbs are a people of no morals, who seek moral guidance form the highest servant of the devil, Artemije.
The unrest last year was caused by Serbian gendarmerie who were in Kosovo illegally, who allowed dogs to chase Albanian children into a river, where the Albanian children drowned.
Whatever happened it was embaressing but the fact that there is nothing else on record for Kosovar Albanians shows who the criminal is. Shall we start?
Who owns the Hague? Serbs
Who tops the nr of created mass graves? Serbs
Who tops the highest number of rapes? Serbs
Who started most wars after WWII? Serbs
Who owns the drug cartels in S-E-Europe? Serbs
Who uses God's name in murder? Serbs
(note on this the use of religion during the agression on Croatia where it was anti-Catholic, and Bosnia where it was anti-Muslim)
Who owns majority of lame propaganda sites? Serbs (this is a fun one to google)
Who has been known to commit crimes against humanity during the past 200 years? Serbs
Who will be named as the most gone fishing country in S-E-Europe in a poll by all other countries? Serbs
Yey, again we should emphasise that we all need to help Serbia overcome its anger and frustration whereby it keeps blaming others (today its Kosova, tomorrow Hungary) for its problems. The lack of will to do something to fix the domestic problems will only lead to another war, these people NEED HELP.
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