“Internationally supervised independence”

“Internationally supervised independence”

In an annex to his Kosovo status proposal, Ahtisaari explicitly recommends “internationally supervised independence”, according to agencies’ reports yesterday.  

Ahtisaari’s spokesman Remi Durlot told B92 the document submitted to the UN yesterday contained all the main principles already present in the previous proposals drafted by Ahtisaari.

Durlot added the final version would be put before the UN Security Council by the end of this month.

“The changes in this proposal are minor compared to what was presented to both sides last week, during the March 10 meeting [in Vienna]. You know what that proposal contains, the changes are negligible. The special envoy has submitted his report to the UN secretary-general and I cannot present the contents of the document. The special envoy has specified before that his report would clearly define the status vision,” Durlot told B92.

“We're looking at independent Kosovo”

Kosovo government advisor, Carne Ross of the Independent Diplomat group, told Radio Free Europe he expected to see independent Kosovo “with some restrictions on its sovereignty”.

“We don't know the precise terms of what the secretary-general will say to the Security Council when he transmits Ahtisaari's proposals to the Security Council. And what we understand is that that the covering letter will explicitly recommend that Kosovo be made independent, and that that is clear. But this is what we understand - the document is not yet public, so we don't know this for sure,” Ross, a former British diplomat, told RFE.

“Ahtisaari has deliberately avoided using the word "independence" in his initial recommendations in order to avoid causing upset in Serbia and also with its allies in the Security Council. But perhaps he's judged on this occasion that he needs to be more explicit about it,” Ross added.

“The two sides were [in Vienna] discussing a package that is a public document, which is Ahtisaari's recommendations, which will go to the Security Council, we understand, in the next few weeks. And that document is pretty clear that we're looking at an independent Kosovo,“ Ross said.