Koštunica, high Russian diplomat, confirm common stand

"These results will be developed later on. I think the understanding of the fact that the Kosovo settlement should be treated rationally and with great responsibility will strengthen.”

i.e. no artificial deadline of the 10th Decemeber and those who think there will be illegal declarations let alone illegal recognition come the 11th December are delusional.

These current "negotiations" upto 10th December are building the foundations for the further talks that will be held in 2008 with regards the administering of autonomy in Serbia's Southern province of Kosovo & Metohija.

2008 will the start of full reconcilation of all of Serbia's citizens and the return of all those who have been ethnically cleansed from Serbia's province.

He stressed that "if a particular solution is not acceptable to Serbia, then it will not be acceptable to Russia either," it is added in the announcement.
Thank you very much! Again these "negotiations" are a waste of time and just to fool the international community. It looks that the 10th of December is going to be a long wait for the Kosovar Albanians. No more talks with Serbia after the 10th of December unless Serbia recoginises the Republic of Kosova.

"He stressed that "if a particular solution is not acceptable to Serbia, then it will not be acceptable to Russia either," it is added in the announcement. "

This is a pretty clear message. Unlike americans who just make empty promises, and are very famous for that.

These statements should encourage albanians to keep negotiating.

Thank God for the Russians, Chinese, India, etc. Just read this link and you'll see why.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0710/S00331.htm

Aren't these talks pointless, Serbia is going to offer autonomy as always and the Kosovo Albanians are going to refuse and proclaim independence in December.

EA, If the Kosovo Albanians were in the position to say no more talks with Serbia unless they recognize independent Kosovo
Republic they would've already said that.

Now let's get real here. Nobody is in the position to declare these talks finished.
The talks will take as long as they need to take, but if K-Albanians are impatient they can always declare independence now and be done with it.

KS, and what exactly did the US "devliver" in Iraq & Afganistan??? Besides body bags.

Peggy,
I agree that the talks should take as long it is needed but that would make sense if there are "real talks". Real talks means that there is a starting and finishing point and should be MEANINGFUL. The main issue of these "talks" is all about the SOVEREIGNITY of Kosova. There would be no agreement between the two when it comes to SOVEREIGNITY. Let's be sencere about it and at the end of the talks "we agreed to disagree". Then what is next? EU and USA as the largest contributor to the region, should primarily decide about next move. We Albanians believe that Ahtisari Plan plus the Kosovar Albanians Friendship Open Offer towards Serbia is the best way forward.

Russia has a point.

I can see what is going to happen: Kosovo will declare unilateral independence and the US will recognize it and some EU states too. I then predict a further few scenarios:

1) Serbia does not react, Kosovo attempts to build its own economy, but struggles to do so because it cannot join the UN (thanks to veto-holders Russia and China) and cannot join the EU (thanks to veto-holders Spain, Romania, Greece, Slovakia and Cyprus). So because its economy cannot get the EU funding other developing EU states receive, the infrastructure (in particular roads, banking, telecommunications, energy and social services) will be underdeveloped, crime will remain rampant and young people will flock to other countries in order to obtain foreign passports/citizenship and work. Kosovo will be permanently behind Europe in terms of development and the US will do nothing to help (have they helped Afghanistan and Iraq?).

2) Serbia reacts and recolonizes the province to the condemnation, perhaps military reaction of NATO (well, not so much the US in this time round due to being bogged down in uphill wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (who knows, by then it could be also with Iran and maybe even Turkey)) and we will have another Balkan war and more destruction and death in Kosovo, more ethnic cleansing and perhaps more genocide.

Russia would see no reason in not recognizing Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia and Pridnestrovie, all these regions have a similar case as Kosovo, so logically, why not recognize their independence? Risk factor: as with the Balkans, we may see these two scenarios I mentioned appearing in the future ex-areas of Georgia, Afghanistan and Moldova. Putin is stubborn as a mule and probably will do it.

I understand the Kosovo Albanians perfectly when it comes to their reasons as to why they want to break away from Serbia, but I am still extremely skeptical about how it will look afterwards for an independent Kosovo without a coastline, not major source of wealth, not being a part of any major organization due to some veto holder barring it.

The only option for them then would be to model their economy in the Switzerland, Monaco, Liechtenstein way, by zeroing any taxes on bank deposits from outside Kosovo, trying to attract massive investment, but with the total lack of economic stability and high crime levels, you can pretty much forget about that. Tourism? Hmmm, mountains perhaps, but there are many other countries in Europe with mountains.

As much as Russia's "good intentions" definitely do not coincide with their record of treating their minorities in Chechnya and Dagestan, I still think they are the voice of reason in this situation, and I agree with them. Serbia too.

KS- US only delivers to Blackwater and Haliburton and Chevron. Chevron is #1 business in Burma. US doesn't deliver to 4th World drug traffickers.

Ratko, this anti-America attitude is really starting to wear off.

America is number 1, and we're not number 1 because we bluff or have "empty promises" but because we deliver.

Thanks Giver, you have just answered the question for me.

By the way, what happened to those famous "weapons of mass destrucion"? I don't think they even found one.

What a nice pretext to bomb the entire country...

Nick:

don´t you feel ashamed to talk about body-bags and the Serbs´ necessity to "clean the own house first"?

while serbian courts have already sentenced a number of serbian war criminals, not all yet,but they ARE working on it, the Albanians still celebrate their war criminals as heros!

it seems as if you are shamelessly trying to play some facts down here!

the Germans first said that they did not know about the crimes that have been committed against the Jews.

I would never compare the holocaust with Kosovo, since that would be blasphemous, but could it be that the Albanians still have to realize that their "freedomfighters", at least some of them, were ordinary criminals?

The same situation is from Kosovo side, Agim Ceku and High diplomats from US confirm common stand. This confirmations bring the situation nowhere.
We should wait the the "results".

KS

Is this some independent Pristina publication?

Serbia together with Kosovo's economy has $54.31 billion (2007 est.) GDP, Albania has $20.46 billion (2007 est.) GDP according to the IMF. That is twice as much, even with the nonfunctional province being counted. Due to their high growth rates they are occasionally called a "Balkan Tiger" (like the Asian ones).

Albania's GDP per capita is only better than that of Moldova, that is it, which means it is very poor by European standards.

Why lie to yourself and others like this? Got a complex?

Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo enjoyed all the human and civil rights due them before the intrusion of the Albanian terrorists and drug dealers who would organize the Kosovo Liberation Army, the notorious KLA. Just prior to the recent war in Kosovo, the University of Pristina in Kosovo had 37,000 students enrolled in it, eighty percent of whom were ethnic Albanians. The Pristina Radio and Television Station was broadcasting their programs in the Albanian language all day. There was one Albanian Daily and eleven periodicals. Just prior to recent war the government of Yugoslavia was providing enormous subsidies to the province of Kosovo. The mistake made by the Serbs was setting up a party-run state instead of a constitutional government that would give effective sovereignty to the Republic of Serbia over its entire territory, including Kosovo and Metohija. The assumption was that all the people of Kosovo and Metohija, including the majority of Albanians who lived there, would remain loyal citizens of the Republic of Serbia, endowed with all the same rights and privileges accorded to the Serbian population and in some cases, above and beyond those rights that had been accorded to the Serbs.

If the educated group of politically powerful policy makers who were so instrumental in fashioning policy towards the Serbs in the 1990s had taken one serious, honest look at the real status of the Albanian and other minorities in the Republic of Serbia, they would have discovered that these individual ethnic groups enjoyed national, cultural, and civil rights on par with the most modern and best constitutional systems in the world. Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that persons belonging to ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities shall not be denied the right in a community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to communicate in their own language. The ethnic Albanians in Kosovo had all of this guaranteed them and more. But it wasn’t enough. They wanted and continue to demand TERRITORIAL autonomy. Imagine the implications this scenario would have in the United States of America if such demands by different national and ethnic groups were initiated and granted. There would be no more United States, and there would be no more America.

"Thank God for the Russians, Chinese, India, etc. Just read this link and you'll see why.
[link]
(Slavko, 22. October 2007 15:42)"

Slavko, ...don´t take it personal, but that is absolute nonsense. there is no, but really.. neither a legal basis to lead a war against Serbia...
nor a reason for doing that.

first, Serbia knows all legal stipulations up to the highest levels of international law being stipulated in it´s own interest.

second, who shall attack Serbia? the US? better don´t count on that.
the Albanians? that would be a devastating mistake, maybe their greatest one at all.

so, this article you have posted is as serious as those "illyrian" fairytales the Albanians love to believe in.

nothing but nonsense.


what I personally find very amusing, is those Albanians from far away..like KS, please correct me, KS, if I am not right, who are located in the US and are seriously trying to tell us some stories about the USA being no. 1 and how strong they are.

we can see it every day in Iraq.

unfortunately and sadly, every day some young amercian G.I.´s are dying in the streets of Bagdad and other Iraqi suburbs...

http://antiwar.com/casualties/

so, whoever wants to make us believe here that the US are in the condition to lead a war against Serbia, TODAY, must have been born without eyes and brain.

whatever the Albanians may declare, it is irrelevant, since the UNSC is the one and only legal body that can decide about the issue.

that´s a fact. a fact that the Albanians here are denying to see.

the only thing that is of interest for me is, what the Albanians will do or say when they finally realize that they have been duped.
it will be painfull though, but they will overcome it.

let´s hope they do not bite the hand that is feeding them, the international community.

"The Russian diplomat said that “Moscow supports a solution based on fundamental principles of the international law, which will not breach the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia.”"

This is quite a saying, the russians, were always good on talking, the best , however , this "international law" , that they are so eager to protect now, did it change form the other "international laws", when Serbia ( with russians help off course), did killings of inocent people all across ex YU, where was this barking that time.
So Mr.Titov, make it clear to your dear friend Kostunica, that he has to find another routes to get to the Adriatic, becouse through the land of Eagles, never more. Your interests might be big, but our lives are much worthier, our freedom is everything , it is so worth to die for,so tell to your friend (again) that no one can't touch it again.
Also I would advice you to tell to your beloved friend, also, that era of a hardplaying Russia is over , even if you think, that you have a well trained KGB agent as your president , it is just not working, and in the other side, be more carefull of you problems in Russia, try to make an example with Chechenia,try to give some rights to your own volk, do not kill reporters they are just trying to hard to make a democratic and uncorrupt Russia, and leave Kosova alone,becouse Kosova is to far for you.

The best friendship I wish betwen you too, FOREVER.

Interesing comment about body-bags. Kind of off the point. But let's talk about body-bags. How many body-bags were found in Sebrenica or Kosova? The answer is no body-bags because the victems were buried without bags, then dug-up to be hidden in various places (like the police training grounds in Belgrade). I wonder how many police stations in the US have ethnically cleansed bodies hidden in them? And how many of them would be women and children. If you want to change the subject to body-bags, you better clean your own house first.

US delivers, it has been proven.

What does your 3rd world country deliver? What does Serbia deliver? Nothing!

Only this morning I was trying to look up GDP of Albania and Serbia and I was shocked...Albania has a higher GDP than Serbia.

Well, Putin must recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia immediteally if Kosovo declares independence and the US might regcognize this.

If rules apply for the US, the must also apply for Russia.
What will US say to Georgia then? Or Moldavia? Or Turkey?

Look to Turkey now. You really think Kurds will every accept less then independence if Kosovo gets independence?

Come on, guys. I wish the best for ALL Kosovars, but we will not destroy the whole system of international law just for a single case.

Get a life. In Serbia. Good luck. And join Europe as soon as possible.

(love from Holland to all)

Great news.... who says that russia would objcet to Kosova indipedence??
On another issue of conflict with the EU, he indicated Moscow's position on the future of Kosovo may be softening and that the Kremlin could support an independent Kosovo if it were achieved as part of a negotiated settlement agreed to by both Serbs and ethnic Albanians.

"We would not like it, but we would not oppose it," he said. "Our aim isn't to be more Serb than the Serbs."

here is the link
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/22/sports/union.php

To whoeverSomeone used my nick name in this article.

Could you please use another name, i have been using "nick" for quite a while.

thanks

He stressed that "if a particular solution is not acceptable to Serbia, then it will not be acceptable to Russia either," it is added in the announcement.
Thank you very much! Again these "negotiations" are a waste of time and just to fool the international community. It looks that the 10th of December is going to be a long wait for the Kosovar Albanians. No more talks with Serbia after the 10th of December unless Serbia recoginises the Republic of Kosova.

Ratko, this anti-America attitude is really starting to wear off.

America is number 1, and we're not number 1 because we bluff or have "empty promises" but because we deliver.

Aren't these talks pointless, Serbia is going to offer autonomy as always and the Kosovo Albanians are going to refuse and proclaim independence in December.

"These results will be developed later on. I think the understanding of the fact that the Kosovo settlement should be treated rationally and with great responsibility will strengthen.”

i.e. no artificial deadline of the 10th Decemeber and those who think there will be illegal declarations let alone illegal recognition come the 11th December are delusional.

These current "negotiations" upto 10th December are building the foundations for the further talks that will be held in 2008 with regards the administering of autonomy in Serbia's Southern province of Kosovo & Metohija.

2008 will the start of full reconcilation of all of Serbia's citizens and the return of all those who have been ethnically cleansed from Serbia's province.

The same situation is from Kosovo side, Agim Ceku and High diplomats from US confirm common stand. This confirmations bring the situation nowhere.
We should wait the the "results".

Peggy,
I agree that the talks should take as long it is needed but that would make sense if there are "real talks". Real talks means that there is a starting and finishing point and should be MEANINGFUL. The main issue of these "talks" is all about the SOVEREIGNITY of Kosova. There would be no agreement between the two when it comes to SOVEREIGNITY. Let's be sencere about it and at the end of the talks "we agreed to disagree". Then what is next? EU and USA as the largest contributor to the region, should primarily decide about next move. We Albanians believe that Ahtisari Plan plus the Kosovar Albanians Friendship Open Offer towards Serbia is the best way forward.

KS, and what exactly did the US "devliver" in Iraq & Afganistan??? Besides body bags.

"The Russian diplomat said that “Moscow supports a solution based on fundamental principles of the international law, which will not breach the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia.”"

This is quite a saying, the russians, were always good on talking, the best , however , this "international law" , that they are so eager to protect now, did it change form the other "international laws", when Serbia ( with russians help off course), did killings of inocent people all across ex YU, where was this barking that time.
So Mr.Titov, make it clear to your dear friend Kostunica, that he has to find another routes to get to the Adriatic, becouse through the land of Eagles, never more. Your interests might be big, but our lives are much worthier, our freedom is everything , it is so worth to die for,so tell to your friend (again) that no one can't touch it again.
Also I would advice you to tell to your beloved friend, also, that era of a hardplaying Russia is over , even if you think, that you have a well trained KGB agent as your president , it is just not working, and in the other side, be more carefull of you problems in Russia, try to make an example with Chechenia,try to give some rights to your own volk, do not kill reporters they are just trying to hard to make a democratic and uncorrupt Russia, and leave Kosova alone,becouse Kosova is to far for you.

The best friendship I wish betwen you too, FOREVER.

Interesing comment about body-bags. Kind of off the point. But let's talk about body-bags. How many body-bags were found in Sebrenica or Kosova? The answer is no body-bags because the victems were buried without bags, then dug-up to be hidden in various places (like the police training grounds in Belgrade). I wonder how many police stations in the US have ethnically cleansed bodies hidden in them? And how many of them would be women and children. If you want to change the subject to body-bags, you better clean your own house first.

US delivers, it has been proven.

What does your 3rd world country deliver? What does Serbia deliver? Nothing!

Only this morning I was trying to look up GDP of Albania and Serbia and I was shocked...Albania has a higher GDP than Serbia.

Thank God for the Russians, Chinese, India, etc. Just read this link and you'll see why.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0710/S00331.htm

EA, If the Kosovo Albanians were in the position to say no more talks with Serbia unless they recognize independent Kosovo
Republic they would've already said that.

Now let's get real here. Nobody is in the position to declare these talks finished.
The talks will take as long as they need to take, but if K-Albanians are impatient they can always declare independence now and be done with it.

"He stressed that "if a particular solution is not acceptable to Serbia, then it will not be acceptable to Russia either," it is added in the announcement. "

This is a pretty clear message. Unlike americans who just make empty promises, and are very famous for that.

These statements should encourage albanians to keep negotiating.

Thanks Giver, you have just answered the question for me.

By the way, what happened to those famous "weapons of mass destrucion"? I don't think they even found one.

What a nice pretext to bomb the entire country...

Great news.... who says that russia would objcet to Kosova indipedence??
On another issue of conflict with the EU, he indicated Moscow's position on the future of Kosovo may be softening and that the Kremlin could support an independent Kosovo if it were achieved as part of a negotiated settlement agreed to by both Serbs and ethnic Albanians.

"We would not like it, but we would not oppose it," he said. "Our aim isn't to be more Serb than the Serbs."

here is the link
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/22/sports/union.php

Russia has a point.

I can see what is going to happen: Kosovo will declare unilateral independence and the US will recognize it and some EU states too. I then predict a further few scenarios:

1) Serbia does not react, Kosovo attempts to build its own economy, but struggles to do so because it cannot join the UN (thanks to veto-holders Russia and China) and cannot join the EU (thanks to veto-holders Spain, Romania, Greece, Slovakia and Cyprus). So because its economy cannot get the EU funding other developing EU states receive, the infrastructure (in particular roads, banking, telecommunications, energy and social services) will be underdeveloped, crime will remain rampant and young people will flock to other countries in order to obtain foreign passports/citizenship and work. Kosovo will be permanently behind Europe in terms of development and the US will do nothing to help (have they helped Afghanistan and Iraq?).

2) Serbia reacts and recolonizes the province to the condemnation, perhaps military reaction of NATO (well, not so much the US in this time round due to being bogged down in uphill wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (who knows, by then it could be also with Iran and maybe even Turkey)) and we will have another Balkan war and more destruction and death in Kosovo, more ethnic cleansing and perhaps more genocide.

Russia would see no reason in not recognizing Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia and Pridnestrovie, all these regions have a similar case as Kosovo, so logically, why not recognize their independence? Risk factor: as with the Balkans, we may see these two scenarios I mentioned appearing in the future ex-areas of Georgia, Afghanistan and Moldova. Putin is stubborn as a mule and probably will do it.

I understand the Kosovo Albanians perfectly when it comes to their reasons as to why they want to break away from Serbia, but I am still extremely skeptical about how it will look afterwards for an independent Kosovo without a coastline, not major source of wealth, not being a part of any major organization due to some veto holder barring it.

The only option for them then would be to model their economy in the Switzerland, Monaco, Liechtenstein way, by zeroing any taxes on bank deposits from outside Kosovo, trying to attract massive investment, but with the total lack of economic stability and high crime levels, you can pretty much forget about that. Tourism? Hmmm, mountains perhaps, but there are many other countries in Europe with mountains.

As much as Russia's "good intentions" definitely do not coincide with their record of treating their minorities in Chechnya and Dagestan, I still think they are the voice of reason in this situation, and I agree with them. Serbia too.

KS- US only delivers to Blackwater and Haliburton and Chevron. Chevron is #1 business in Burma. US doesn't deliver to 4th World drug traffickers.

Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo enjoyed all the human and civil rights due them before the intrusion of the Albanian terrorists and drug dealers who would organize the Kosovo Liberation Army, the notorious KLA. Just prior to the recent war in Kosovo, the University of Pristina in Kosovo had 37,000 students enrolled in it, eighty percent of whom were ethnic Albanians. The Pristina Radio and Television Station was broadcasting their programs in the Albanian language all day. There was one Albanian Daily and eleven periodicals. Just prior to recent war the government of Yugoslavia was providing enormous subsidies to the province of Kosovo. The mistake made by the Serbs was setting up a party-run state instead of a constitutional government that would give effective sovereignty to the Republic of Serbia over its entire territory, including Kosovo and Metohija. The assumption was that all the people of Kosovo and Metohija, including the majority of Albanians who lived there, would remain loyal citizens of the Republic of Serbia, endowed with all the same rights and privileges accorded to the Serbian population and in some cases, above and beyond those rights that had been accorded to the Serbs.

If the educated group of politically powerful policy makers who were so instrumental in fashioning policy towards the Serbs in the 1990s had taken one serious, honest look at the real status of the Albanian and other minorities in the Republic of Serbia, they would have discovered that these individual ethnic groups enjoyed national, cultural, and civil rights on par with the most modern and best constitutional systems in the world. Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that persons belonging to ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities shall not be denied the right in a community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to communicate in their own language. The ethnic Albanians in Kosovo had all of this guaranteed them and more. But it wasn’t enough. They wanted and continue to demand TERRITORIAL autonomy. Imagine the implications this scenario would have in the United States of America if such demands by different national and ethnic groups were initiated and granted. There would be no more United States, and there would be no more America.

"Thank God for the Russians, Chinese, India, etc. Just read this link and you'll see why.
[link]
(Slavko, 22. October 2007 15:42)"

Slavko, ...don´t take it personal, but that is absolute nonsense. there is no, but really.. neither a legal basis to lead a war against Serbia...
nor a reason for doing that.

first, Serbia knows all legal stipulations up to the highest levels of international law being stipulated in it´s own interest.

second, who shall attack Serbia? the US? better don´t count on that.
the Albanians? that would be a devastating mistake, maybe their greatest one at all.

so, this article you have posted is as serious as those "illyrian" fairytales the Albanians love to believe in.

nothing but nonsense.


what I personally find very amusing, is those Albanians from far away..like KS, please correct me, KS, if I am not right, who are located in the US and are seriously trying to tell us some stories about the USA being no. 1 and how strong they are.

we can see it every day in Iraq.

unfortunately and sadly, every day some young amercian G.I.´s are dying in the streets of Bagdad and other Iraqi suburbs...

http://antiwar.com/casualties/

so, whoever wants to make us believe here that the US are in the condition to lead a war against Serbia, TODAY, must have been born without eyes and brain.

whatever the Albanians may declare, it is irrelevant, since the UNSC is the one and only legal body that can decide about the issue.

that´s a fact. a fact that the Albanians here are denying to see.

the only thing that is of interest for me is, what the Albanians will do or say when they finally realize that they have been duped.
it will be painfull though, but they will overcome it.

let´s hope they do not bite the hand that is feeding them, the international community.

KS

Is this some independent Pristina publication?

Serbia together with Kosovo's economy has $54.31 billion (2007 est.) GDP, Albania has $20.46 billion (2007 est.) GDP according to the IMF. That is twice as much, even with the nonfunctional province being counted. Due to their high growth rates they are occasionally called a "Balkan Tiger" (like the Asian ones).

Albania's GDP per capita is only better than that of Moldova, that is it, which means it is very poor by European standards.

Why lie to yourself and others like this? Got a complex?

Nick:

don´t you feel ashamed to talk about body-bags and the Serbs´ necessity to "clean the own house first"?

while serbian courts have already sentenced a number of serbian war criminals, not all yet,but they ARE working on it, the Albanians still celebrate their war criminals as heros!

it seems as if you are shamelessly trying to play some facts down here!

the Germans first said that they did not know about the crimes that have been committed against the Jews.

I would never compare the holocaust with Kosovo, since that would be blasphemous, but could it be that the Albanians still have to realize that their "freedomfighters", at least some of them, were ordinary criminals?

To whoeverSomeone used my nick name in this article.

Could you please use another name, i have been using "nick" for quite a while.

thanks

Well, Putin must recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia immediteally if Kosovo declares independence and the US might regcognize this.

If rules apply for the US, the must also apply for Russia.
What will US say to Georgia then? Or Moldavia? Or Turkey?

Look to Turkey now. You really think Kurds will every accept less then independence if Kosovo gets independence?

Come on, guys. I wish the best for ALL Kosovars, but we will not destroy the whole system of international law just for a single case.

Get a life. In Serbia. Good luck. And join Europe as soon as possible.

(love from Holland to all)