Koštunica on SAA: Who dares to become accomplice

BELGRADE -- PM Vojislav Koštunica, DSS, said today that anyone who signed the SAA on behalf of Serbia would become an accomplice to tearing Serbia apart.

Vojislav Koštunica (Tanjug, archive)

Koštunica said that this was the real goal of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA).

"I am convinced every Serbian sees that things are being covered up, and that there is something seriously amiss with the Solana agreement," he said.

"Olli Rehn's statement, and those from other EU officials, show that the real goal of signing the Solana agreement is only one, and that is to tomorrow claim that Serbia has recognized the fake state of Kosovo," Koštunica continued.

According to him, Kosovo's unilateral independence proclamation was done on purpose after the initialing of the SAA – the deal the outgoing premier refers to as 'Solana's agreement' – and before its signing, so that Belgrade's signature could be interpreted as the recognition of "the first NATO state".

"I will give one concrete example: if today, after 17 EU member states have recognized the unilateral independence, Serbia were to sign this agreement with the EU, then these 17 states would consider they signed it not with the whole of Serbia, but with Serbia without Kosovo," Koštunica said.

"Today, we must ask who in Serbia dares to ignore these facts and conceal the real goal of Solana's agreement," he warned.

"Those who hide these facts become accomplices in the realization of Solana's agreement's real goal, and that is the breakup of Serbia, and her recognition of the unilateral independence of this fake creation," the Serbian prime minister said.

Yesterday, Koštunica commented on EU enlargement chief Olli Rehn's statement earlier this week that "Serbia and Kosovo should build good neighborly relations".

Koštunica said, quoted by Tanjug, that Serbia does not trade with its territory and that after these and all other elections, Kosovo will remain an integral and inalienable part of Serbia.

"EU Commissioner Olli Rehn clarified he urged the signing of the Stabilization And Association Agreement between the European Union and Serbia and that Serbia's commitment should be to establish good neighborly relations with Kosovo," Koštunica said in a statement sent to the news agency.

"Since the EU commissioner conveyed the EU's stand openly, we will have to say in an equally open manner that we most decisively reject Rehn's request that Serbia should establish good neighborly relations with itself, i.e., a part of its territory," Koštunica said.

"The obligation to establish good neighborly relations literally means for Serbia to recognize the existence of an independent Albanian state in its territory," Koštunica said and added that "most likely Olli Rehn does not understand that this will never happen, and that Serbia will never sign to take on such a commitment."