By: CHRIS GRAEME
THE UNITED States of America is determined that the Balkan autonomous region of Kosovo should become a fully independent state.
Its position was made clear by the American Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, during her official visit to Lisbon to participate in last week’s Quartet for Middle East Peace, but this is likely to set it on a collision course with the European Union.
On Thursday, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic was also in Lisbon, where he held talks with Portuguese Foreign Minister Luís Amado at the Palácio das Necessidades, shortly before Condoleezza Rice’s arrival in the Portuguese capital.
Independence
The Kosovo question dominated round table talks among the leaders during the early afternoon, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and EU Foreign Policy High Commissioner Javier Solana.
Condoleezza Rice spoke about the promise given by President Bush to the Kosovar people for independence during his recent visit to Albania, but the Russians have said they will veto a draft resolution that would give Kosovo supervised independence based on recommendations from an EU Envoy.
Kosovo is currently part of Serbia but has been governed by the United Nations since the crisis in 1999. The province’s ethnic Albanian majority wants independence but its Serbian minority and government in Belgrade has always opposed this.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica called the temporary shelving of Kosovo’s independence approval an important victory for Belgrade and Moscow.
Portugal, holding the Presidency of the European Union favours a solution involving all of the 27 EU member states, including Russia and the United States, and not unilateral backing for independence from the United States alone.
In Lisbon, on Thursday, Vuk Jeremic said that a consensus involving Russia was needed on the question which would ultimately require the sanction of the United Nations Security Council.
The Serbian Foreign Minister reiterated Serbia’s right to border sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the country.
“It is important that the international community moves away from a position where Kosovar independence is seen as inevitable to another position which is acceptable to both sides,” he said.
“The (Serbian) Constitution says that Kosovo is part of Serbia but we are flexible and are prepared to negotiate everything, including 100 per cent autonomy of Kosovo at a regional-governmental level,” he added.
However, Vuk Jeremic warned in Lisbon that a unilateral declaration of independence by or for Kosovo, “would prove extremely dangerous.”
The desire for the Balkan provinces and countries to gain independence from one European power or another has led to conflicts many times over the past few hundred years.
Russia’s decision to back Serbia, her traditional Slav Russian orthodox ally, against the Austrian annexation of Bosnia Herzegovina in 1908, eventually led to the First World War in 1914 – a political and ethnic situation that has never been fully resolved.
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