Fried: Kosovo Serbs must be secured

Fried: Kosovo Serbs must be secured

The UN Security Council will definitely address the Kosovo status issue this year and produce concrete decisions, according to Fried.

“I’ve heard speculations regarding possible moves of Russia and China. The Russian Government is a member of the Contact Group with which we have established very close co-operation on the subject of Kosovo. It’s wrong to believe that any country could obstruct the adoption of the final decision”, Fried insisted.

Fried declined to respond whether the U.S. might unilaterally recognize Kosovo’s independence should the UN SC fail to pass the status-defining resolution. I don’t expect that the Serb leaders would welcome the resolution if it’s not designed to suit their wishes. However, I do expect Serbia acts responsibly inline with the European values”, Fried concluded.

"Ahtisaari's plan will block UN SC"

As a guest on TV B92’s talk show Poligraf, Slobodan Samardžić explained that the highest UN body was very likely to be blocked after UN Envoy Martti Ahtisaari submits the finalized version of his plan. The Kosovo status settlement will thus be additionally complicated and postponed.

Ahtisaari’s team had known from the very beginning of the negotiating process that Belgrade proposed the creation of a Serb entity in Kosovo, Samardžić said while talking about the amendments Belgrade tabled in Vienna.

He added that Belgrade’s demands that the Serbian police secured churches and monasteries were based on the UN resolution 1244. However, Samardžić expressed doubts that Ahtisaari would accept the most important amendments posed by Belgrade, but rather make minor alterations to his original plan and put it before the UN SC as such.

“Ahtisaari would face yet another rejection on the part of Belgrade, which stems from poorly organized talks in Vienna and a lack of genuine negotiations”, Samardžić argued.

Samardžić warned that the work of the UN Security Council will likely be hampered, as the body will not be able to handle the Kosovo status settlement very well or decide on the province’s future any time soon.