Serbia’s president said on Saturday that his country stands ready to participate in talks with its breakaway province of Kosovo, but that it would never recognize the new country’s secession.
Serbian President Boris Tadic’s stand does not auger well for the success of negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina, which the EU hopes to mediate. Kosovo insists that it will not discuss anything that would alter its status as an independent nation.
Two weeks ago, the UN General Assembly adopted a Serbian resolution calling for talks between the two sides to start.
Under US and EU pressure, Serbia agreed to water down its original draft — which described Kosovo’s secession as “unacceptable” — and replaced it with a new text, which simply acknowledged an international court ruling that Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008 was legal.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has met with both Tadic and Kosovar Prime Minister Hashim Thaci on the sidelines of this year’s UN General Assembly to lay the groundwork for the talks.
Thaci reportedly reiterated to Ashton that the talks could only deal with issues between two sovereign states and that Pristina would not agree to discuss its status as an independent country.
In his address to the UN General Assembly on Saturday, Tadic described the resolution as “status neutral” and welcomed the EU’s readiness to facilitate the dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo.
However, he noted that Serbia’s position remains unchanged.
“The unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo will not be recognized by Serbia implicitly or explicitly,” Tadic said.
Serbia considers Kosovo the cradle of its statehood and religion.
The upcoming talks are of critical importance to Kosovo. Although 70 UN member states have recognized it as an independent state, it still lacks the support needed to join the UN. Russia and China could use their veto as permanent members of the Security Council to block Kosovo’s membership.
The talks are also vital for Serbia, which is seeking to join the EU. Twenty-two of the bloc’s 27 members already have recognized Kosovo and it is unlikely that Serbia’s candidacy could proceed without a resolution to the dispute.
Kosovo came under UN and NATO administration after a 1999 NATO-led air war halted former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic’s crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists there. However, the Security Council resolution that established the interim UN administration left Kosovo’s final status in question.
Kosovo’s predominantly ethnic Albanian leadership declared independence from Serbia in February 2008, with strong backing from the US and major EU nations. The Serbian government, strongly supported by Russia, insists that Kosovo is still legally bound by the Security Council resolution and the UN — at Moscow’s insistence — still retains overall authority in the nation of 2 million people.
In a related development, Bosnian President Haris Silajdzic criticized the leadership of his country’s Serb entity, saying their intransigence was hindering Bosnia’s progress and destabilizing the Balkans.
“Our collective resolve to prevent the escalation and opening of fresh wounds in Bosnia is being tested again,” Silajdzic told the General Assembly.
Since its 1992-1995 civil war, Bosnia has consisted of two fairly autonomous mini-states — one for Bosnian Serbs and the other shared by Bosnian Muslims and Roman Catholic Croats.
Because of the ethnic and religious divisions, Bosnia barely functions on a federal level, primarily because Bosnian Serbs do not want to transfer any of the powers of their mini-state to the central government. This is a key obstacle standing in the way of Bosnia’s EU membership.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to