BRUSSELS, July 11 – Kosovar Albanian leaders held talks Wednesday with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
The discussions with Solana took place as western nations are trying to reach a compromise U.N. resolution on Kosova that would give ethnic Albanians and Serbs four months to reach agreement on the province’s future status. It would not automatically trigger a route to independence if negotiations fail.
Solana’s meeting with Kosova’s President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Agim Ceku follows his talks with Serbian President Boris Tadic and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Sejdiu and Ceku are expected to press the Europeans to back independence for Kosova.
The meeting provided an opportunity to “analyze the situation in all the different aspects that it has. The situation in New York, the situation on the ground and also the situation in relation with the European Union”.
Solana told reporters that the EU remains firmly united and committed to resolve the status issue as soon as possible and is making all possible efforts to secure this outcome through the UN Security Council. This is for the good of Kosova as it will provide legitimacy and allow for a functional and sustainable conclusion. “I would like to say that for us in the European Union, as you can imagine, it is very import that a Security Council resolution exists.”
“We are multilateralists, we believe in the UN. And therefore we will continue to work in order to have a solution through the UN Security Council,” said Solana. He reiterated that the Ahtisaari’s concept provides the basis for the settlement of the Kosova issue: “The content of the Ahtisaari proposal is a content that we defend”.
Stability in Kosova is fundamental for the region and for Europe. “The people in Kosova and the leaders in Kosova deserve an outcome and we will work for that. So, I would like to say once again that we will continue working together, that I am very pleased to have received today the important leaders of Kosova, our friends, who will continue to be leaders and friends,” said Solana.
The day before, Solana met with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to discuss Kosova, as well as other major world and European issues.
The Kosova issue was discussed at length during the meeting. HR Solana said: “We are prepared to deploy an ESDP mission, in the area of security and the rule of law, but for that we need a UN Security Council resolution. I hope very much that in the process that has been opened, another period of time will be available for discussion between the two sides and that at the end of it, a resolution will be approved by the UN Security Council”. Solana insisted on the fact that this could not be an open-ended process but one that had to be limited in time and in which he expected the parties to become engaged positively. He also stressed the need for unity within the UN Security Council.
Ban Ki-Moon said: “My position is that any further delay or prolongation of this issue will not be beneficialŅThe leadership of the EU is fundamentally important at this time and I strongly urge the EU to take this leadership. At the same time, I would like to take this opportunity to ask the parties concerned not to take any prematurely unilateral actions which may further complicate this already complicated issue.”
Serbia strongly objects to a U.S.-backed plan to give Kosova limited independence. Russia, Serbia’s ally in the Security Council, has implied it would veto any such measure.
Although Kosova officially remains a province of Serbia, it has been under U.N. and NATO administration since a NATO-led air war halted a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999.
The European Union is supposed to deploy a mission to Kosova to replace the current U.N. administration there. But the Europeans have made it clear they will not do so until the U.N. Security Council adopts a resolution clearly mandating the transfer of authority.
“What we need to do is engage in negotiations which will give us a clear mandate on Kosova. If that negotiation needs more time it needs to be made available,” Prime Minister Jose Socrates said. Portugal assumed the EU’s rotating six-month presidency last week.
“Serbia firmly rejects the new American draft resolution at the U.N. Security Council because it is a preparation for Kosova’s independence,” Serbia’s Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said Wednesday.
Kostunica was responding to a statement by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried in Belgrade on Tuesday that the U.S. position “is clear: Kosova will be independent.”
