Basha: Dec. 10 is the last date for an agreement

TIRANA, Oct. 23 – Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha said Tuesday that official Tirana supported the Kosovar leaders’ stand at the last summit in Vienna, Austria and also encouraged them to be visionary throughout the talks headed by the Troika and scheduled to conclude December 10.
The Troika presented Prishtina and Belgrade with a 14-point document aimed at reaching common ground. The envoys’ proposal did not explicitly mention independence, but it assured Kosova’s ethnic Albanians that Serbia “will not re-establish a physical presence in Kosovo.”
Basha said that the last proposal could not replace that of the previous U.N. envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, and considered their work as an effort by the Troika to find common ground between the two sides.
He said that the main principle in the talks continues to remain “respect of the Kosovar people’s will,” which is independence.
The minister repeated that official Tirana has made it clear that unless there is a solution by the end of the talks, then “the main option remains the actions in the context of the Ahtisaari Package, including all those it envisages, including independence.”
The minister denied saying explicitly that Tirana would recognize an independent Kosova after December 10, saying that for the moment they supported the Troika efforts adding that, “Dec. 10 is the last date for an agreement and after that there will normally be development in accordance with the international documents where the main one is the Ahtisaari Package.”