Friday, October 07, 2005

Drive for Kosovo future status - BBC

The main reason that the issue of Kosovo is being driven along at this pace is that there is an overwhelming pressure amongst the ethnic Albanian majority there for something to be done soon to resolve the state of the Serbian province.

They, undoubtedly, want complete independence from Serbia and Montenegro.

But there is a realisation that even though certain standards were meant to be fulfilled in Kosovo before these talks could begin - such as the rule of law, protection of Serbian minorities - we have seen that they are going to go ahead without that happening.

So there is a real drive that is pushing this along.

'More than autonomy'

The Prime Minister of Serbia and Montenegro, Vojislav Kostunica, said he was surprised that the preconditions for talks on Kosovo's future - the full implementation of those standards - hadn't been met and yet they were going ahead with them.


Belgrade has always said all along that it wants to offer more than autonomy but less than independence for Kosovo.

That is not accepted by the vast majority of Kosovo's population.

There were a few indicators on Friday that the Kostunica government would want to keep control of Kosovo's borders, centralise the customs offices and keep them part of Serbia, only allow one defence minister, one foreign minister, one seat at the United Nations for both Serbia and Kosovo.

Those are likely to be argued against very strongly by the ethnic Albanian side.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Argue?!!! No arguing on our part. The people have spoken and they want independence.

Anonymous said...

I don't want independence. Ali.

Anonymous said...

You probably are minority in wanting unification with the motherland.

Anonymous said...

What is important here is the albanian refusal to negotiate. All mature states negotiate. This is why the EU will occupy Kosovo after UNMIK is gone. Sad but true.

Anonymous said...

I ask for the freeze of assets (the bicycle and Zastava Fiqa) of the Serb that would bet no indepdence on this site. On the other hand, it looks like the rest of us here are getting slightly richer.

Anonymous said...

There's nothing to negotiate on, Serbia is offering the very same thing that existed in 1998.
If they really wanted to have Kosova and form a democratic country than they would offer a solution like this.

There would be Kosovar Albanian ministers in the Federal government and also in lower positions of the central federal government.

There would be Kosovar Albanians in the federal army; they would have to hold positions such as generals, majors etc.

There would be Kosovar Albanians in the federal police holding important positions and low positions as well.

There would be Albanians represented in the federal legislature.

Albanians would be represented on every level of the federal government.

Serbia would allow the internationa community to monitor that all of the above would be implemented.

Serbia would let the security in Kosova to the internatial community, KFOR for example.

An independent Kosova offers all of the above to its Serbian minority.

This would be plan that would make the international community asks the Albanians for consesus not the crapy autonomy Albanians had before 1998 that ended up in their massive slaughter. Nothing would stop Serbia 10 years from now starting another genocide against Albanians as they again would claim that they were internal affairs and that Serbia could kill anyone they wanted in their state. Miloseboiatch did it and if Sesejl wins after 10 years which is quite possible a crappy autonomy of Kosova wouldn't stop him from going through his plans of total anihilation of Albanians. Independent Kosova with the USA base of Bondsteel surely will.

Anonymous said...

Why no albanian ministers and ambassadors? For two reasons: 1/These posts were usually occupied by montenegrins. Montenegrins work few but they like power. 2/You threatened all those who wanted to work with Serbs. You boycotted serb-YU institutions. That was your boycott, not our. You could get parlementary group in Belgrad but you refused. You cannot today charge Serbs with that.

Anonymous said...

That's total BS. Albanians did not refuse them. That is what Serbs are doing today in Kosova. Albanians did not get them because nobody wanted the Albanians to have those positions.

Anonymous said...

...And even if that was true during Tito's communism why isn't Serbia offering them again during negotiations if they trully want to build a democracy.