http://au.news.yahoo.com/070203/2/12amc.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Thursday <b>February 15</b>, 10:01 AM
<b>Serb parties close ranks on Kosovo</b>
All main Serbian political parties have closed ranks behind a parliamentary resolution opposing what looks like an inevitable march to independence this year by the breakaway province of Kosovo.
The first session of parliament after elections last month easily adopted the motion, which rejects a plan by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari giving Kosovo a form of independence under European Union supervision.
The resolution, endorsed by 225 deputies in the 250-seat parliament, said Serbia rejected all aspects of the plan "which violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity" of the country.
"We must defend Kosovo and we'll defend it in talks as long as there is any sense in talking," said Tomislav Nikolic, deputy head of the ultranationalist Radical Party, Serbia's strongest.
But analysts said the motion was simply a device to ensure all parties took responsibility for the impending loss of a province that is steeped in Serb history but has long been home to an ethnic Albanian majority demanding to be free of Belgrade.
(This is very sad news.)
Parliament also mandated a negotiating team for a last round of UN-mediated talks with Kosovo Albanian leaders next week in Vienna, although no breakthrough is expected there.
Kosovo's two million Albanians - 90 per cent of its population - have demanded their own state since 1999, when NATO bombing drove out the forces of late Serb autocrat Slobodan Milosevic, who were accused of ethnic cleansing in a battle against separatist guerrillas. The UN has run the province since then.
"This is not the Serbia of Milosevic," said Bozidar Djelic, prime ministerial candidate of the Democratic Party in coalition negotiations that could still take weeks to complete.
"We want Serbia to be part of the European Union, part of the world. But we cannot do anything else but defend the unity of our motherland, in particular Kosovo."
<b>The resolution said "imposed independence" for Kosovo would have unforeseeable consequences, destabilise the region and "represent an exceptionally dangerous precedent for resolving minority issues and territorial disputes" worldwide.</b>
Ahtisaari expects Kosovo to declare independence later this year, in late August or September. "I don't have a date in mind, but I do think things will go very quickly," he told French newspaper Le Monde last Friday.
He is giving Serb and Kosovo Albanian leaders until March 10 to find some common ground before a final meeting in Vienna, after which his proposals will go to the UN Security Council.
Former US ambassador to Serbia William Montgomery says Serbian leaders trying to "save" Kosovo believe they must remain united, in a bid to ensure Russian support and win a Moscow veto of any independence resolution at the United Nations.
Wednesday's resolution can "lock virtually all parties into the process", Montgomery wrote in a weekend editorial. Serbian pragmatists could be labelled traitors if they subsequently refused to support a hardline reaction, he said.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->May Serbia retain Kosovo. And would that the islamic terrorists move into their islamic pardees of Albania where they are originally from anyway.
Poor Albania though, it used to be christian (scary missionary Mother Teresa's homeland) and, before that, pagan.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Thursday <b>February 15</b>, 10:01 AM
<b>Serb parties close ranks on Kosovo</b>
All main Serbian political parties have closed ranks behind a parliamentary resolution opposing what looks like an inevitable march to independence this year by the breakaway province of Kosovo.
The first session of parliament after elections last month easily adopted the motion, which rejects a plan by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari giving Kosovo a form of independence under European Union supervision.
The resolution, endorsed by 225 deputies in the 250-seat parliament, said Serbia rejected all aspects of the plan "which violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity" of the country.
"We must defend Kosovo and we'll defend it in talks as long as there is any sense in talking," said Tomislav Nikolic, deputy head of the ultranationalist Radical Party, Serbia's strongest.
But analysts said the motion was simply a device to ensure all parties took responsibility for the impending loss of a province that is steeped in Serb history but has long been home to an ethnic Albanian majority demanding to be free of Belgrade.
(This is very sad news.)
Parliament also mandated a negotiating team for a last round of UN-mediated talks with Kosovo Albanian leaders next week in Vienna, although no breakthrough is expected there.
Kosovo's two million Albanians - 90 per cent of its population - have demanded their own state since 1999, when NATO bombing drove out the forces of late Serb autocrat Slobodan Milosevic, who were accused of ethnic cleansing in a battle against separatist guerrillas. The UN has run the province since then.
"This is not the Serbia of Milosevic," said Bozidar Djelic, prime ministerial candidate of the Democratic Party in coalition negotiations that could still take weeks to complete.
"We want Serbia to be part of the European Union, part of the world. But we cannot do anything else but defend the unity of our motherland, in particular Kosovo."
<b>The resolution said "imposed independence" for Kosovo would have unforeseeable consequences, destabilise the region and "represent an exceptionally dangerous precedent for resolving minority issues and territorial disputes" worldwide.</b>
Ahtisaari expects Kosovo to declare independence later this year, in late August or September. "I don't have a date in mind, but I do think things will go very quickly," he told French newspaper Le Monde last Friday.
He is giving Serb and Kosovo Albanian leaders until March 10 to find some common ground before a final meeting in Vienna, after which his proposals will go to the UN Security Council.
Former US ambassador to Serbia William Montgomery says Serbian leaders trying to "save" Kosovo believe they must remain united, in a bid to ensure Russian support and win a Moscow veto of any independence resolution at the United Nations.
Wednesday's resolution can "lock virtually all parties into the process", Montgomery wrote in a weekend editorial. Serbian pragmatists could be labelled traitors if they subsequently refused to support a hardline reaction, he said.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->May Serbia retain Kosovo. And would that the islamic terrorists move into their islamic pardees of Albania where they are originally from anyway.
Poor Albania though, it used to be christian (scary missionary Mother Teresa's homeland) and, before that, pagan.