Nationalism Rising in Serbia? - TIME

A banner reading "Russia Help Us!" is seen in front of a poster of Tomislav Nikolic in the Kosovo town of Mitrovica.

Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP / Getty Images

Nationalism Rising in Serbia? - TIME

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U.S. assures Russia on backing of Kosovo

Solana visits Pristina and Belgrade, says short delay in Kosovo ...
Southeast European Times - 51 minutes ago
A brief delay in the final round of UN-mediated talks on Kosovo's status would be acceptable to the EU, the bloc's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said on Wednesday (February 7th) in Pristina.

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A draft-bill backing Macedonia's, Albania's, Croatia's and Georgia's accepting into NATO, proposed by the Former Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar has been presented at US Senate.

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Focus News - 30 minutes ago
The BETA agency cites information of the Austrian investigation authorities, according to which video recordings of children subjected to sexual harassment were confiscated from several countries including Macedonia. Other countries include Serbia, ...

Krivokapic says Montenegro lags behind because of Serbia
Makfax - 2 hours ago
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U.S. assures Russia on backing of Kosovo

By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 8, 2007

The United States has assured Russia that Washington's support for Kosovo's eventual independence from Serbia does not mean it will back the breakaway aspirations of Russian autonomous regions in the Caucasus, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday.
Moscow, in sympathy with Belgrade, has been reluctant to join American and European endorsements of a plan proposed by U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari that would lead to independence for Kosovo in all but name.
"I have talked very often to the Russians, first of all, that Kosovo is a precedent for nothing, which is a very important point to make," Miss Rice told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in reference to Moscow's fear that Kosovo's independence might encourage separatist forces in Russian regions such as Chechnya and North Ossetia.
"We need to recognize that the longer this drags out, the more likely we are to have a breakdown in order in Kosovo itself," the secretary said during testimony on President Bush's fiscal 2008 foreign affairs budget proposal. "We believe that the Ahtisaari plan deserves support."
Kosovo has been a U.N. protectorate since the 1999 NATO war with Serbia over President Slobodan Milosevic's policies in the province, which led to "ethnic cleansing" targeting Kosovo's majority Albanian population.
Mr. Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, heads a yearlong process whose last phase is a round of talks with Serbs and Kosovo's leaders. He has invited both sides to meet in Vienna, Austria, next week.
But Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica asked yesterday for a 10-day delay to convene the country's new parliament elected last month. He said the legislature must choose a new Kosovo negotiating team to guarantee its credibility.
Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, met with Mr. Kostunica in Belgrade yesterday and said a brief delay would be acceptable.
Nevertheless, Mr. Kostunica indicated that Serbia will not agree to independence for Kosovo.
"Serbia will be constructive, but it will also be unbending in its efforts to ensure respect ... for its territorial integrity," he said at a press conference.
Russia, a traditional Serbian ally whose position is that a solution should not be imposed on Serbia, has said that Belgrade should be "constructive."
Miss Rice noted NATO's inclusion of Serbia in its Partnership for Peace program, which could lead to eventual membership in the alliance.
"We don't want a revanchist and angry Serbia," she said. "So we are working with our European allies to make sure that Serbia understands that it belongs in Europe."
But Kosovar Albanians have warned that their patience is running out. They blame the eight-year political limbo for a stagnant economy and an unemployment rate of 50 percent.
Both Miss Rice and Mr. Solana urged Kosovo to step up to the task of building democratic institutions.
"The Kosovars have a responsibility, too, to protect minority rights, to make certain that Serbs feel that they can really live there," Miss Rice said. "We are having equally difficult and tough, sometimes, discussions with the Kosovo Albanians about their responsibilities."

U.S. assures Russia on backing of Kosovo - World - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

Serbs dither as ground shifts on Kosovo

By Ellie Tzortzi

REUTERS

9:22 a.m. February 5, 2007

BELGRADE – Serbian leaders dithered over Kosovo on Monday as diplomatic support for their rejection of an independence plan for the breakaway province appeared to wilt with an unexpected warning from Russia to be 'constructive'.

With a clear Serbian position on Kosovo's future complicated by internal political rivalries, a sudden chill wind came from Moscow, which Belgrade had always assumed would stop an international drive for Kosovo independence.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a weekend comment suggested it was by no means certain that Russia would use its veto in the U.N. Security Council to block independence.

Serbian party chiefs summoned by President Boris Tadic to thrash out a coherent response to the Kosovo plan of U.N. special envoy Martti Ahtisaari agreed Tadic should attend talks in Vienna next week – but only to say that Serbia was not ready to talk.

No party won an outright majority in Serbia's general election two weeks ago. Parliament has not been convened and, hamstrung by wrangling over the Kosovo plan presented last Friday, no new coalition is even close to being formed.

'The only holder of executive power, the only legitimate institution in the country at this moment is the president of Serbia. And if we don't have any other body, then it is his responsibility,' said Vladeta Jankovic of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS)

'We wouldn't have anything against him going to Vienna and temporarily representing Serbia's position...'

Tadic and Kostunica are rivals for power with different approaches to the looming loss of Kosovo. Tadic received Ahtisaari when he presented his plan. Kostunica snubbed him.

A Tadic statement on Monday said the new parliament should be constituted immediately, with a debate on Ahtisaari's plan, an agreed Serbian response and a newly-mandated negotiating team as its first order of business.

Local media reports said some parties proposed appealing to the U.N. for more time, while others urged convening the outgoing parliament in emergency session in order to renew the mandate of the old Kosovo negotiating team.

COOL WIND FROM MOSCOW

Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since 1999 when NATO bombing led by the United States forced late strongman Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw troops accused of killing 10,000 Albanians during a counter-insurgency war with separatists.

The Albanians, who demand independence, make up 90 percent of the population of two million in the impoverished province, cherished by Serbs as the cradle of their nation.

While it has been clear for months that Ahtisaari would not back a Serb demand to resume sovereignty over Kosovo, 'Belgrade has managed to enter the last phase of talks on the future status of Kosovo without a parliament, without a government and without a negotiating team,' the liberal daily Danas commented.

Kostunica had assured Serbs that Russia had promised to block Kosovo's independence in the Security Council. But Lavrov threw this into doubt, saying at the weekend: 'President Vladimir Putin has never said he would use Moscow's veto...over Kosovo.'

On Monday, Serbia's Blic daily cited government sources as saying Russia was warning Kostunica that 'if Serbia rejects everything, Russia will not support it, on the grounds that it is not being constructive'.

U.S. envoy Frank Wisner, visiting Kosovo, said Washington 'believes this is an excellent proposal (that) deserves full support' and he was going to Moscow to secure Russia's backing.

Russia is a member of the six-power Contact Group along with Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States, which has collectively set policy on Kosovo since 1999.

'I will be making the point that what was begun together should end together,' the American diplomat said.

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