Kostunica says Kosovo more important than EU membership

01/08/2006

Serbia will continue to oppose independence for Kosovo even if its EU bid is harmed as a result, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica told a Belgrade daily.

(EUobserver, Blic - 01/08/06; AP, Reuters, BBC, CNN, AKI, Radio B92, Beta - 31/07/06)

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica says Belgrade can agree to "substantial autonomy" but not independence for Kosovo. [Getty Images]

Serbia will not accept independence as a solution to the Kosovo status issue, even if its EU membership bid should suffer as a result, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said in an interview published on Monday (31 July).

"Serbia will reject a solution that takes Kosovo away from Serbia and, very importantly, will continue to consider Kosovo part of its territory," he told the Belgrade daily Danas.

According to Kostunica, some within the international community have suggested that Serbia give up Kosovo for the sake of EU membership. While entry into the Union requires meeting certain conditions, these do not include "territorial concessions," the prime minister said.

Legally still part of Serbia, Kosovo has been under UN administration since June 1999, when a 78-day NATO intervention ended months of fighting between Kosovo Albanian guerrillas and Serb forces accused of ethnic cleansing in the province.

The 1998-1999 conflict left some 10,000 Kosovo Albanians dead and forced about 800,000 to flee their homes. Today, there are about 100,000 ethnic Serbs still living in the province, where the ethnic Albanian majority accounts for 90 per cent of its population of 2 million.

UN-led talks to determine Kosovo's final status -- including a high-level meeting on 24 July -- have yet to see a significant breakthrough. The two sides remain far apart in their positions, with the Kosovo Albanians saying they will accept nothing short of independence and Serbia insisting it will agree only to "substantial autonomy".

Citing Western diplomats, Reuters reported that the major powers involved in the status process see little alternative to independence, with EU and NATO supervision for years to come.

UN Special Envoy Marrti Ahtisaari is said to be planning to brief the UN Security Council on the status negotiations in September. If an agreement has not been reached, the Security Council could impose a solution.

"Serbia's position will be to reiterate that Kosovo is a part of Serbia," said Kostunica. "This is not empty rhetoric, but a legal and constitutional formulation."

But he distanced himself from a recent statement by Tomislav Nicolic, deputy leader of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, who said Serbia should "fight for Kosovo" in the event the province gains independence.

"Serbia so far has reached only for legal arguments, not force," Kostunica said. "That is how it would act in the future."

Serbian Defence Minister Zoran Stankovic said on Monday the army was not preparing for war in response to Kosovo's possible secession. "We are not thinking about armed conflicts, nor do we intend to prepare the armed forces for active participation in armed conflicts," the minister said during a visit to Novi Sad.

Meanwhile, the next, two-day round of talks on Kosovo is scheduled to begin on 7 August and is expected to focus on local reform and minority rights.