[NYTr] Fix was always in: EU "mediators" urge on Kosovo-Albanian separatists

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by mart

 
Reuters via Alertnet - Dec. 3, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/39upyh

Kosovo envoys make last  visit, EU urges decision

By Ellie Tzortzi

BELGRADE, Dec 3 (Reuters)--Kosovo's political limbo is unsustainable 
and its future must be decided, EU mediator Wolfgang Ischinger said
ahead of a final visit to the region on Monday before vreporting to the
United Nations.

As he headed to Kosovo and Serbia with U.S. and Russian mediators, he
said next week's report on the breakaway province vwould not recommend
a solution but would make clear one is long overdue.

The mediators will give Serb and Kosovo Albanian leaders a draft
version of their report, due to be submitted to the United 
Nations by Dec. 10. Kosovo's Albanian vmajority plans to declare
independence after that, probably in early 2008.

"This report will offer a detailed review of the 120 days of negotiations with 
both sides," Ischinger told Belgrade's B92 radio. He said it would contain no 
proposals.

"It's not the job of the troika (the EU, the United States and Russia)
to tell members of the Security Council or the Secretary General what
should happen after the end of the troika mandate on Dec 10."

The envoy said he personally felt that all avenues for compromise had
been exhausted. There was no common ground between Serbia's offer of
broad autonomy and the Albanian demand for independence after eight
years of U.N. rule.

In comments to daily Blic, Ischinger said a unilateral declaration of
independence by Kosovo was one possible scenario.

"I believe this will be coordinated as  much as possible with the EU,
U.S. and other countries," he said. "One thing is  certain: the status
quo is unsustainable and a decision is necessary".

MEDIATION ENDS

Kosovo has been under U.N. rule since 1999, when NATO bombs expelled
Serb forces accused of the killing and ethnic cleansing of Albanian
civilians while battling separatist rebels. Almost 18  months of
negotiations, led first by U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari, have failed to
produce any hint of compromise. Russia blocked Ahtisaari's plan for
EU-supervised independence at the U.N. Security Council, 
and says talks must continue.

The United States and European Union say mediation ends with the
mediators' report. There are signs of increasing unity in the
27-member EU to support a declaration of independence.

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said on Monday that in recent
weeks the EU had "worked a lot and there has been some progress
towards agreement".

"I insist on the need not to take hasty decisions because this
process ... requires a little bit more time," he said during a visit
to Albania. "This big operation will be irreparably ruined if 
there were hasty gestures on December 10."

Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, whose country assumes the 
EU presidency on Jan. 1, said Kosovo's path to independence should be
"coordinated nytinternationally".

"We need a little more time for that," Rupel told German business
daily Handelsblatt, but added: "The Kosovars must definitely not wait
 another year for independence."

Serbia has warned of violent unrest in the Balkans if Kosovo becomes 
independent, raising the possibility that minority Serbs in Bosnia and 
Albanians in Macedonia could in turn demand to secede from their
states. 

[Additional reporting by Paul Carrel, Benet Koleka; Writing by Ellie
Tzortzi and Matt Robinson; Editing by Michael Winfrey.]

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