Agim Ceku says Kosovo to declare independence by end of May

PARIS: Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku said he expects his disputed province to declare independence from Serbia by the end of May, in a New York Times interview published on Monday.
Ceku said there was strong international support for the move, even though its final status has yet to be agreed upon by the UN Security Council and Russia has threatened to veto the current plan. “I expect Kosovo to be able to declare its independence by the end of May,” Ceku told the paper.
“There is a very strong US commitment to do this,” he said, adding that, “It wants to finish the job. Britain’s (prime minister) Tony Blair is on board, too.” The ethnic Albanian dominated province in southern Serbia has been under UN administration since mid-1999, after NATO bombing helped to drive out Serbian forces who were waging a brutal crackdown against Albanians. Its future status is expected to be determined in the coming weeks as the UN Security Council begins a debate on UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari’s plan to give increasingly impatient ethnic Albanians their wish for statehood.