First Kosovo status meeting: August 30

First Kosovo status meeting: August 30

The daily also stated that the two delegations will meet separately with the Troika diplomats.

The Troika of big-power envoys ended last night their initial mission discussing the Kosovo status in Belgrade and Priština.

European Union envoy Wolfgang Ischinger said that the principles of the Troika in the Kosovo status talks are based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 and principles of the Contact Group.

He said that one of the principles of the Troika is not to propose solutions for the Kosovo problem, but to convince the two sides to make compromises that will bridge the gap between their stances.

Ischinger said that the envoys will support any solution the two sides are able to come up with.

"We, as the Troika, will not give any proposals, partition or anything else. We stated clearly to both sides that the principle of the Troika is to accept every solution which the two sides are able to reach. That includes all options,” Ischinger said.

Asked if the Troika would agree to a partition of Kosovo, he said, “If that is what they want.”

The Associated Press reported Sunday that Ischinger also threatened to withdraw the possibility of bloc membership from Serbia and Kosovo if they failed to reach a solution on the province's future.

"Coming closer to the EU, associating themselves with the values and the constitutional beliefs of the European Union depends on their ability to reach an agreement here," Ischinger said.

"In absence of such agreement the European door will not be as open as I'm sure everyone here in this region would hope it to be," the European Union envoy added. In reaction to this, Goran Svilanović, the South-Eastern Europe Stability Pact official and former foreign minister in the Đinđić cabinet said that Ischinger "had no right to set the terms to Serbia", regarding the country's European integration.

Svilanović explained this by saying that the EU did not have a Kosovo policy backed by all of its 27 members.

According to him, the purpose of the 120-day-long negotiations regarding Kosovo’s status settlement is for the EU states to agree on their common policy with respect to the process.

“Only based on such a policy could the EU articulate its stance and dictate terms."

Svilanović added he hoped that the EU members would be able to formulate a unified stand on the Kosovo issue during the said period, stressing that “at the moment there is no cohesive stance of the 27-member Bloc.”

“The EU member states share the same position only when it comes to the UN Security Council as the place where the final status decision must be made, but it generally understood that can hardly be regarded as a joint policy on Kosovo,” Svilanović concluded. Meanwhile, Politika daily Editor-in-Chief Ljiljana Smajlović said that Ischinger’s statements are proof that the West’s policy has been backed into a corner where other solutions that were once unacceptable are no longer seen as such.

“That means that the U.S. does not believe that it will be able to convince European countries to unilaterally recognize Kosovo’s independence if the proposal does not pass in the UN Security Council,” she said.

“I expect that Belgrade and Priština’s stance will remain unchanged. The proposal for partitioning Kosovo will not pass because that would discredit Serbia’s negotiation stance,” Smajlović added.

“It is not known what will happen after December 10, I am not sure if either the U.S. or Russia have a concrete plan for what will happen if there are no answers by then,” Smajlović said.