28/9/2007
Only Realistic Option For Kosovo Is Independence, Albania Tells UN Assembly

The only option for Kosovo that will bring durable peace and stability to the region is full independence for the Serbian province, Albania’s Prime Minister has told national leaders gathered at the General Assembly.

Sali Berisha told the Assembly’s annual high-level debate that independence for Kosovo would reflect the “expressed will of her citizens” and not set an international precedent for other regions seeking self-government and enhanced autonomy.

“The claim that the independence of Kosova may lead to the creation of Greater Albania cannot be farther from the truth,” Mr. Berisha added, using the Albanian name for the province.

“In reality, Kosova’s independence will only end the fluidity of Albanians in the Balkans, along with the idea of the creation of a single Albanian State in the territories where they are a dominant majority. The simple truth is that Kosova Albanians have decided in their project of the future to join Brussels, not Tirana.”

Earlier this year the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on the issue, Martti Ahtisaari, proposed a phased plan of independence for Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs and other minorities by about nine to one.

In July, a troika comprising the European Union, Russia and the United States agreed to lead further negotiations on Kosovo’s future status, while the wider Contact Group for Kosovo met this week at UN Headquarters in New York to discuss the issue.

Direct talks between representatives of Belgrade and Pristina are scheduled to take place in New York.

In his address Mr. Berisha accused Serbia, which opposes independence and has proposed that the province be given greater autonomy instead, of a lack of realism.

“Rejection of the Ahtisaari package is unhelpful and proves that what matters first for Belgrade is not the freedoms and rights of Serbs in Kosova, but rather the idea of the Greater Serbia,” he said.

Using the right of reply, Serbia’s representative criticized Mr. Berisha for “openly calling for the violation” of the territorial integrity of a UN Member State, particularly on the eve of such crucial direct talks.

Meanwhile restating Serbia’s long-standing rejection of independence for Kosovo, the country’s President has proposed a compromise for the province based on the “autonomous development” of the Albanian-majority community.

“In defence of the State sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia, our negotiating team has offered a decentralization model based on European solutions that would protect the interests of Kosovo Albanians, as well as the threatened interests of the Serbian and other non-Albanian ethnic communities in the province,” Boris Tadić told the General Assembly’s annual high-level debate.

The arrangement would involve Serbia giving “Kosovo Albanians special rights and competences for an autonomous development of their community within the Republic of Serbia.”

The Serbian President said that according to UN statistics, of the more than 200,000 Serbs who left Kosovo in 1999, only 7,100 had returned.  “A legitimate decision on the future status of Kosovo can be brought only by the Security Council of the United Nations,”  he said.

Referring to reports that Kosovo’s provisional institutions could declare independence on 11 December, he said any one-sided recognition of independence would forever alter the international legal order. “Many separatist movements the world over would use the newly established precedent,” he said. “Many regions in the world would be destabilized.”