BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro, May 1 (UPI) -- U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrook says Serbia must decide whether it wants to control Kosovo or become a member of the European Union.
Holbrook, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told Belgrade's private B92 radio-television Monday he cannot speak on behalf of the Bush administration but suggested Serbia should decide between Kosovo and the EU by the end of this year.
He said Kosovo should be independent of Belgrade, but it should guarantee absolute freedom for the Serb minority in 90 percent ethnic-Albanian Kosovo.
"I know that my friends in Serbia will not agree with me, but truth is that Serbia has lost Kosovo," said Holbrook. "It lost it due to the policy of (the late Serbian strongman) Slobodan Milosevic and it is the best for Serbia to recognize this reality," he said.
Holbrook said the presence of the U.S.-led NATO troops in Kosovo would be needed some time after Serbs and ethnic-Albanians reach an agreement on Kosovo's future status.
Serbs and ethnic-Albanians are to meet in a fourth round of talks in Vienna May 4-5.
Kosovo has been under U.N. administration and NATO protection since 1999, when NATO air attacks forced Milosevic's Serbian troops to withdraw from the province to stop human rights abuses against ethnic-Albanians.
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4 comments:
Pick Kosovo Pick Kosovo Pick Kosovo
leave to yesterday's super-bureaucrat to regurgitate a widely made analogy for a little press love. put holbrooke and clinton in a room and they'll just simultaneously and continuously talk to each other about themselves for hours
wow - somebody give nyoutlawyer an award for the longest, most unrelated comment on an article
Holbrook is a mass murder. he killed Serbian children. when he sold Milosovec that he was going to bomb Serbia, Milosovec should has nailed his ass to the hospital roof so that he could have met the first bomb in person.
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