Ceku: No further Kosovo talks

Ceku: No further Kosovo talks

Speaking about a UN fact-finding mission due to arrive in Kosovo on April 26-28, Ceku said “Priština would present the new reality created in Kosovo”.

The mission will be headed by Belgium, currently one of the 15 members of the Security Council.

“I expect the UN fact-finding mission to acknowledge achievements in Kosovo and encourage the Council to prompt the adoption of new Kosovo resolution,” Ceku said.

Kosovo’s prime minister argued that “Kosovo was not ready for new rounds of talks,” stressing that “all other states, apart from Serbia and Russia, shared the same opinion.”

“I believe that following this visit some members of the Security Council will take the right decision and endorse a resolution for Kosovo," he argued.

“Russia may ask for continued negotiations, but no one will show readiness for it to happen. Ahtisaari’s proposal has already reached the UN and gained backing of the UN Secretary-General,” Ceku said.

“I believe the majority will support the plan. Some states may abstain from voting, but I am positive the end of May will see the adoption of a new UN resolution and an independent Kosovo,” he insisted.

UNMIK Chief Joachim Ruecker said he did not yet receive an exact timetable of the mission’s planned activities in the province.

“I believe the mission has been tasked with gathering information, rather than facts pertaining to Kosovo,” Ruecker opined.

Displaced Serbs to rally for UN Kosovo visit

Internally displaced Kosovo Serbs plan to gather on the Kosovo border during next week's UN fact-finding mission visit, to display their inability to return home in safety.

"There will be a large number of women and children there to summon the members of the Security Council to come and see the people who want to return," said Goran Savović, deputy chair of the association of displaced and expelled Serbs.

Over 100,000 Serbs fled revenge attacks by Albanians when the UN entered the province in 1999. The actual figure is disputed.

Some 100,000 remain in the province, half concentrated in the north and the rest in enclaves throughout the province, according to Reuters.

"We will show them that the situation is not as rosy as the U.N. mission in charge of Kosovo wants to portray," said Milan Ivanović, a Kosovo Serb leader.

"Not even one percent of the expelled Serbs have returned to Kosovo."

He predicted 10,000 would turn up.

Ivanović feared the UN mission might not be given the chance to visit enclaves and to meet Serbs who would be able to give them a true picture of how things stood.

"We are inviting the mission to visit the enclaves where it will see the difficult life and lack of security of these people," he said.

"Priština prepares for independence"

Priština’s negotiating team for Kosovo’s the future status has started drafting the constitution, election and state emblems bills, “in order to make them ready for an immediate adoption in the Kosovo Parliament after the UN Security Council passed the new Kosovo resolution”.

Kosovo deputy prime minister Lutfi Haziri said that the UN fact-finding mission would be presented with the arguments that “spoke in favor of the international standards’ implementation”.

“We must show that Kosovo has made progress not only in the field of sustainable return of refugees, but in the rule of law and economy as well,” Haziri said.

Opposition leader Hashim Tachi told journalists that Kosovo’s parliament would “proclaim independence immediately after the UN Security Council passed the status-defining resolution at the beginning of June 2007.”

Tachi did not rule out the possibility that the parliament would proclaim independence even if the Security Council failed to pass a new resolution.