Koštunica: Announced UN vote “damaging”

Koštunica: Announced UN vote “damaging”

Koštunica also said that a particularly harmful and destructive turn of events could come about if “the Albanian separatists use a failure of the resolution as an excuse to unilaterally declare the province independent in opposition to the UN Security Council.”

He pointed out the fact that the Serbian government would instantly annul a decision on unilateral independence and declare it invalid “because Kosovo-Metohija is an integral and inalienable part of Serbia.”

In place of unilateral independence Koštunica once again called for continued negotiations between Belgrade and Priština.

According to him, the upcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin will be an opportunity to examine new ideas on “how to reach a solution based on compromise through a process of negotiation.”

Earlier Tuesday, the Associated Press and B92 reported that the U.S. expects the UN Security Council to vote on the Kosovo resolution this week.

U.S. ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad said that “the ball is now in Russia’s court,” and that his country was waiting for an answer from Moscow.

“We are still expecting to vote this week, and we will hold consultations tomorrow with other sponsors of this resolution,” Khalilzad said.  

The resolution for internationally-supervised independence for Kosovo proposed by the U.S. is supported by Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium and Slovakia.

UK ambassador: No Plan B for Kosovo

British Ambassador to Serbia Stephen Wordsworth said today all the efforts of the international community have been directed towards the consolidation of support for UN Special Kosovo Envoy Martti Ahtisaari’s recommendations.

“There in no ‘Plan B’ for Kosovo and I have no further comments on that issue,” Wordsworth told the Beta news agency’s correspondent in Novi Pazar.

He said that a new version of the resolution that the U.S. and European UN members submitted last week took into account the different comments of all the UN Security Council member states, including Russia.

“We are talking about a routine UN procedure. We will likely be presented with an amended draft of the resolution. The process will last until we see that we have done everything we can. The proposal will only then be put to a vote,” Wordsworth said.

Wordsworth could not say with certainty when the council may vote on the new Kosovo resolution.