Kosovo status on agenda tomorrow

Kosovo status on agenda tomorrow

The meeting represents the start of the second phase – direct status talks attended by the UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari. It is expected that the Austrian chancellor and foreign minister Wolfgang Schussel and Urusla Plassnik will also attend.

Serbian president Boris Tadić, PM Vojislav Koštunica and FM Vuk Drašković will all take part in the negotiations. Serbian president Boris Tadić said it was a positive development that Belgrade will be present in this way. “We have had objections to the concept of this first meeting as the international negotiators envisaged it. Almost all of our objections have in the meantime been accepted”, Tadić said.

Kosovo negotiators are also traveling to Vienna. President Fatmir Sejdiu, the delegation chief, said back at the time the team members were revealed that their goal is well-known: “That is Kosovo’s independence, and the delegation has the Kosovo parliament mandate to pursue this goal.”

Rohan: Don’t expect agreement

UN deputy Kosovo Status Envoy Albert Rohan said that an agreement should not be expected at tomorrow’s meeting of Serbia’s and Kosovo’s high officials, but rather that the two sides will clarify their position on Kosovo’s future. “The meeting in Vienna will give us a relevant, clear picture of what the two sides want. They will also have an opportunity to talk about it, ask questions, answer them and look for solutions. I think it will be an important meeting. Both sides wanted it, they now have it and this leads us into the new phase of the negotiations”, Rohan told the BBC.

He said that so far it is known that the Kosovo side wants independence, but the aim of tomorrow’s meeting is to find out more – how they see their society, how far they are willing to go in order to protect the minorities and the like.

Rohan expects the Serb team to specify what they mean when they say, “broad autonomy”. “When we have had a chance to hear them out, at least there will be no doubts as to the two sides’ positions. These are our expectations – it would be naïve to believe that the Vienna meeting will produce an agreement, but I believe it is important if the result means that the two sides have clarified matters in a civilized manner”, Albert Rohan explained.

“We haven’t concluded the technical part of the negotiations. One of the issues – true community – has not even been addressed, because neither side showed any desire to discuss it. We only touched on the economic problems once, at the beginning. Therefore it is our proposal that we work on practical issues, with a new momentum, after the status talks”, Rohan concluded.