UK takes aim at UNSC Kosovo meetings "avoiding Russian veto"

UK takes aim at UNSC Kosovo meetings "avoiding Russian veto"

In August, Britain will take over the one-month rotating presidency over the United Nations Security Council.

With Resolution 1244 passed in 1999, the UN Security Council placed Kosovo under the auspices of the United Nations. Thus, the quarterly reports on the work of the UN mission in Kosovo and Metohija, UNMIK, and about the situation in the province are regularly heard in that body. The UK would like to have less of that.

"It is high time for the Security Council to meet less often on this topic. We need to focus on real threats to international peace and security. Kosovo does not belong in that category," then UK ambassador to the UN Matthew Rycroft said in February.

Along with these demands, London might have another wish - that the Security Council stops dealing with with Kosovo altogether, or does that behind closed doors.

"I am sure that they will endeavor to abolish those sessions and turn this into closed consultations without any official SC sessions on Kosovo. It's possible they will do it during the voting on procedural matters, Russia and China cannot use their veto there. We are not present there," Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic has said.

Vladislav Jovanovic, the former ambassador of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the UN, says that that issue would then start to wane in the eyes of the world because it would not be constantly present.

The president of the SC sets agendas, presides over the meetings and oversees the hotspots. From that position, can they avoid a veto?

"According to what the charter says, the veto power is used when deciding on essential issues, it cannot be used in procedural matters. Now the question is whether one par excellence political issue, which is a product of a non-authorized (NATO) military action against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, can be translated into a procedural issue. Technically, and most likely that will be the clashing point between those who disagree, Russia and China and a couple of non-permanent ones (SC members), and those who have a voting majority," Jovanovic pointed out.

The push to have "less Kosovo and Metohija in the SC" had its predecessor in the British, but also in the insistence of a few other Western countries to have less UNMIK in the province.

"The essence of all these demands is to exert pressure on Serbia and the wider international community to accept the thesis that the Kosovo issue has been resolved," said former diplomat Zoran Milivojevic.

Those RTS spoke with see this issue in the context of "the global competition between Washington and Moscow."

"It shows that Britain is firm in its position to include Serbia in its relations with Russia and to pursue strategic interests by pressuring Serbia, in this case the issue is KiM (Kosovo and Metohija), and we cannot treat this as a friendly move," said Milivojevic.

The UK is certainly consistent in its policy towards Serbia and the issue of Kosovo and Metohija. London recognized Kosovo only one day after the unilateral declaration of independence was made (in 2008). Several years ago it sponsored a (failed draft) resolution on Srebrenica, and recently engaged in a diplomatic precedent of sorts when it rebuked Suriname for the country's decision to withdraw its recognition of Kosovo.