Kosovo negotiating team to hold meeting

Kosovo negotiating team to hold meeting

The UN chief envoy Martti Ahtisaari’s office communicated that the technical negotiations will be continued in August, while a new high level meeting should take place in September.

U.S. Special envoy Frank Wisner said in Priština technical issues agreement will take precedence over other questions, at the same time describing the Vienna meeting as very successful. Wisner praised the Albanian side for their frankness. “I believe the talks were successful, it was an historic occasion, a moment in history has been passed and the Albanian side was frank, respectful and restrained. I also have noted to my friends in Belgrade that they behaved and conducted these talks in a dignified manner. But I would be wrong if I did not also underscore the commitment of the United States to one of the guiding principles of the Contact Group of Nations, articulated at the beginning of the negotiations. And that is the principle of Kosovo as an integral community and area, the principle of no partition of Kosovo, no change in the properly understood borders”, Wisner concluded in Priština yesterday. Vladika Artemije of the Raško-prizrenska eparchy said after his visit to Washington DC that he had had one of the most successful visits to the U.S., considering the number of meetings and the understanding he encountered when he related the suffering of the Serbian people in Kosovo. Vladika Artemije said he had asked his U.S. hosts to help change the direction of their country’s policies.

“I have, as the Kosovo Christians arch-shepherd, traveled to the United States one more time in order to testify about the hardships Christians face in Kosovo, and to provide an insight into what’s yet to come. I have also come to ask you to help us change the direction of the U.S. policies, because, the way they are now, they will sentence my Christian people to extermination and create another evil state, this time in the heart of Europe”, Vladika Artemije said.

Rupel: Serbia must not be the loser

Dimitrij Rupel says Slovenia is one of the EU countries that wish to see no losers emerge from the Kosovo status talks. “We believe Kosovo is independent in many ways at this time. I do not mean to say technically independent, but self-sufficient, under international guidance”, Slovenian Foreign Minister said.

“We have no objections to some sort of a conditioned independence, if that meant tying the conditions to the solution of the Western Balkans problem as a whole. We believe that the whole of that region should join the Union, but Serbia first and foremost”, Rupel said.

The Slovenian minister said that his country does not wish to see a situation where Serbia would be an apparent loser, and Kosovo Albanians winners, because that would, in his words, be detrimental to both Serbia and Kosovo.