TIRANA, Aug. 14 – Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha said Tuesday that a Kosova partition would seriously threaten the regional stability.
Berisha said that those advocating a partition of Kosova as a solution to its status process not only “do not give a solution to the Kosova status but would threaten the foundations of Kosova’s peace and stability and wider,” according to a statement issued by his press office.
“The option of partition runs openly counter to all the international definitions for the solution of Kosova’s final status,” said the statement.
“Prime Minister Berisha believes that respecting the existing international borders of the Balkan countries and Kosova’s independence in its territory within its international borders are the only way for the region’s peace and stability.”
“New divisions in the Balkans motivated with clean ethnic countries would open the way to a spiral of a series of dangerous crisis and conflicts not only in our peninsula but even for Europe,” said the statement.
Berisha’s reaction was reported over the weekend after the EU envoy to the talks said that partitioning the province along ethnic lines was an option if ethnic Albanian and Serbian leaders agreed, and threatened to deny the possibility of EU membership if the sides failed to compromise.
Albania has always called for a quick solution to the future status of Kosova and appealed to ethnic Albanians there to avoid violence.
Official Tirana says that a final status that would reflect the Kosova citizens’ aspirations and free will for an independent, democratic, multiethnic and European state is the only way out.
Albania has been the strongest supporter of independence for Kosova, where ethnic Albanians make up 90 percent of its population.
Serbia wants to keep at least some control over the province, and has also approved a new constitution declaring Kosova an integral part of its territory.
Albania has said Serbia’s constitutional claim over Kosova is unacceptable.
Since the end of the war between Serb military forces and separatists in the southern province in 1999, Kosova has been run by a U.N. administration and patrolled by NATO peacekeepers.
Patience is running out in the volatile province of Kosova with worries of further deterioration if international envoys fail to persuade ethnic Albanians and Serbia to agree on its future.
Last week envoys from United States, the European Union and Russia launched a 120-day effort to end the impasse over Kosova.
The new effort follows Russia’s threat to block a Western-backed plan to grant Kosova internationally supervised independence in the U.N. Security Council.
The diplomats are to report back to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon by Dec. 10.
The delay in resolving Kosova’s political status has raised fears of renewed violence as the frustration among the majority ethnic Albanians grows in the absence of a decision over its future, eight years into U.N. and NATO administration.
Both sides in the talks have expressed doubt that an agreement will be reached and prospects for compromise are slim. Kosova’s Albanians continue to insist on full independence from Serbia, an outcome Belgrade opposes.
The two sides are to hold the next round of talks with international envoys August 30 in Vienna.
