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Kosovo Albanians are ready to declare independence
Today the mandate given by the UN to the international mediation troika to determine the status of Kosovo expires. Representatives of Russia, the USA and the European Union reported ahead of schedule. On December 7, they presented a report to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon , in which they noted the inability of the Serbian leadership and the authorities of the Kosovo region to come to an agreement.However, today's day was anxiously awaited in the world's capitals. Albanian separatist leaders have long said that there will be no new negotiations, and the failure of the troika will force them to declare independence unilaterally. Formally, today the assembly (parliament) of Kosovo can adopt an act of independence and seek recognition from the world community. In response, the Serbs living in the north of Kosovo will declare the annexation of these areas to Serbia. All this threatens a new Serbo-Albanian war. However, there is a chance that the international community, especially the United States, will persuade the Albanians not to rush.
Otherwise, the situation may get out of control. Thus, the Bosnian Serbs are also ready to join Serbia, abolishing the Dayton Peace Agreement of 1995. While the Albanian separatists of Macedonia, Montenegro and the southern Serbian Presevo Valley have already raised the question of joining the “Republic of Kosovo”. And how the situation in Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia will develop in this case is difficult to even imagine.
The international community has little leverage over Pristina. Hopes for the UN Security Council meeting on December 19, when the Kosovo issue will be discussed, are low. Russia is in favor of continuing negotiations, and the United States, through Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has already stated that it is time to “put the logic of the Ahtisaari Plan into effect.” Let us recall that the former special envoy of the UN Secretary General for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari at the beginning of the year proposed granting Kosovo independence under international supervision. This idea was immediately rejected by Serbia and Russia.
Moscow yesterday called on the Security Council to speak out for the continuation of negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina. “There should be no artificial deadlines for solving the Kosovo problem,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last night. This position was supported by Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. According to him, Belgrade is ready to continue negotiations “in any city in the Kosovo region.” “A political and democratic solution for Kosovo must be found through new negotiations,” Mr. Kostunica emphasized.
However, other opinions prevail in the Kosovo Contact Group (Russia, USA, UK, Germany, Italy and France). German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger has already said that he “does not see a single reason” why new negotiations will be more successful than previous ones. And the United States openly supports Kosovo's independence. As Russian diplomatic sources told Vremya Novostei, the American representative in the troika, White House special envoy Frank Wisner, visited Pristina at the end of 2005 and promised support to the Albanian separatists. Therefore, one could not expect compliance from the Albanians.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasized the other day that Washington’s “preoccupation with the independence of Kosovo and the lack of an alternative to such independence” has become “the main obstacle to continuing the search for a negotiated solution.”
“In the current situation, the UN Security Council will not be able to make a concrete decision in the near future,” said Andrei Shemyakin, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Deputy Director of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with Vremya Novostey yesterday. “From the very beginning it was clear that there would be no progress in the negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina, and they themselves would become an operetta theater.” Our interlocutor believes that “the US and the EU agreed to 120-day negotiations only because they could not hold July through the UN Security Council “Ahtisaari plan”: “However, in the West and in Pristina they proceeded from the fact that after the expiration of this period there would be a unilateral declaration of independence of the region.” Mr. Shemyakin believes that in the end “Kosovo will become a self-proclaimed state like Taiwan or Turkey The Republic of Northern Cyprus, whose independence is recognized by only some countries": "The United States will most likely recognize the independence of Kosovo, but in the European Union there will be problems with this. Not all EU members support the Albanian separatists."
A number of EU member countries, primarily Greece and Cyprus, are opposed to Kosovo's independence. They are threatening to block the decision to send an EU police mission to the region, designed to replace the current peacekeepers operating under the UN flag. Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn sent a message to Pristina on Friday in which he urged Albanians not to rush. According to him, a unilateral declaration of Kosovo's independence "could create insurmountable difficulties for the European Union and NATO."
Pristina's unilateral actions are now unprofitable for the West. Serbia is due to hold presidential elections in the second half of January, and Washington and Brussels do not want to radicalize Serbian voters. The White House will still try to convince the restless Albanian wards not to rush. After all, Kosovo’s leaders have already repeatedly pushed back the deadline for declaring independence. A couple of months ago, Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku called November 28, a public holiday in neighboring Albania, Flag Day. Hashim Thaci, who won the elections to the regional parliament on November 17, made adjustments. He promised that the Kosovo Assembly would adopt an act of independence “a few days after the mediators’ report.” And then Ceku pushed the deadline even further, saying that Kosovo would become independent “before March” 2008.