Kosovo draft resolution submitted

Kosovo draft resolution submitted

Ahtisaari proposes an international-supervised independence for the province.

U.S. and Russian UN ambassadors have scheduled a meeting with Kosovo experts today.

American ambassador to the UN, Zalmai Khalilzad, said that “there were changes, but the essential part of the resolution still calls for Kosovo entering a new phase in its road towards independence,” according to the UN’s website.

He added that “Kosovo's independence is unavoidable,” and that the U.S. is open to any constructive proposal from Russia.

Khalilzad also hopes that the resolution will be voted on next week, while Russian officials stated that if the U.S. insists on a vote, Russia might use its veto in the Security Council to thwart it.

Russia unhappy with new version of Kosovo resolution

The Russian authorities have rejected the new version of the UN Security Council's draft resolution on Kosovo.

"We remain unsatisfied with the new version of the draft resolution on Kosovo," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin told Interfax on Friday.

"We hope that work will continue," he said.

Russia's position regarding ways to resolve the Kosovo issue remains unchanged, Kamynin said.

"We want negotiations to continue and a solution to be found that would suit both sides," the spokesman said.

"UN Security Council's Resolution 1244 is valid and needs to be implemented in full," he said.

Ahtisaari's plan envisions granting Kosovo independence, to which Serbia is categorically opposed.

Russia also rejected the UN envoy's suggestions, dismissing them as an attempt to unilaterally impose a solution to the Kosovo problem on other parties.

Belgrade calls for new Kosovo talks

Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardžić said today that the province’s status resolution process at the UN has returned to square one, “which is why a new stage must begin in which major elements of UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari’s proposal should be abandoned,” the government web site said.

Speaking about the new draft resolution presented by the United States on May, and bearing in mind Russia’s repeated opposition to it, Samardžić told the Tanjug news agency that the draft resolution is practically the same and comprises “99 percent of the text of the resolution proposed two weeks earlier”.

According to him, it was “obviously impossible to have UN Security Council members, reach a minimum consensus on the mater”.

“We are therefore again somewhere at the beginning. It is necessary to begin a new process, a new stage in the resolution of this issue in an honest and open way,” Samardžić said.

Samardžić also described the announced postponement of Kosovo issue settlement in the western circles as realistic approach, as well as that a new negotiating process would imply “leaving out major elements of Ahtisaari’s plan, which proposes independence for Kosovo”.

Speaking on Belgrade’s initiative for continuation of talks with Priština, Samardžić said that it would be an approach “without artificial deadlines”.