Sunday, February 05, 2006

Draskovic: ICTY fugitives weaken Serbia's negotiating position

BELGRADE/WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2006 (BETA) - On Feb. 2 in Washington Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic spoke with U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, who conveyed to him that Serbia's position in the Kosovo status talks would grow weaker the longer the ICTY indictees are not brought to justice.


"The messages were rather harsh, but not unexpected. There is no Partnership for Peace and NATO, Serbia's progress toward the EU is in danger and Serbia's negotiating position on Kosovo itself will weaken dramatically until the ICTY indictees are in The Hague," Draskovic said in a telephone statement to BETA.

According to Draskovic, Burns also said that unrealistic political demands regarding Kosovo -- all those ignoring the leading principles of the Contact Group, including the principle that there can be no return to the pre-1999 situation -- harm Serbia's negotiating position.

The Serbia-Montenegro foreign minister stressed that during the conversation he had "insisted sharply and firmly" that the territorial integrity of Serbia cannot be brought into question, as even NATO did not bring it into question after its victory over former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

No Mr. Draskovic, it is Serbia's decades of agression towards its neighbors and losing one war after another that has weakend Serbia's negotiating position...