No progress on Kosovo in G8 meeting

No progress on Kosovo in G8 meeting

“Considering there are still differences on essential issues and possible future steps to be taken, the discussion will continue,” the declaration said.  

According to the German delegation sources, the meeting saw “open, intensive and serious talks on Kosovo”.

At the same time, the sources said, participants expressed dedication to “maintaining unity” and willingness to continue discussions and reach a solution “acceptable to all sides”.

Russia warns on Kosovo as G8 meets

Earlier Wednesday, Russia warned other world powers on Wednesday not to decide the fate of Kosovo on their own, Reuters reports.

"The fate of Kosovo, the fate of Serbia on the whole should be decided through their direct talks rather than in New York, Potsdam or in any other formats," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at the start of a meeting of G8 countries in Potsdam, Germany, according to Russian news agencies.

Kosovo has become a major irritant in relations between Russia and the West and Group of Eight (G8) president Germany is keen that the issue will not overshadow a G8 summit it is hosting next week in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm.

"The positions within the G8 (on Kosovo) are not yet close enough to say how we move forward in the Security Council," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters at the start of the G8 foreign ministers meeting in Potsdam, which is preparing the ground for the June 6-8 leaders meeting in Heiligendamm.

"We need to make it clear to our Russian partners that without a decision by the Security Council we simply won't make any progress on the western Balkans and Kosovo."

European Union Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told colleagues in Brussels today that talks on closer ties with Serbia could resume soon because Belgrade was moving to cooperate with the UN war crimes tribunal.

Brussels is keen to smooth the way for a supervised Kosovo independence settlement, which will be largely policed and administered by the EU, by making parallel progress on closer ties with Serbia, Reuters quotes its EU sources as saying.

In addition to Kosovo, G8 foreign ministers are expected to discuss the nuclear standoff with Iran and the unresolved conflict in Sudan's Darfur region at the one-day meeting, which was guarded by hundreds of police.

Churkin: No deal with West over Kosovo

Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin dismissed Tuesday a report in a Croatian newspaper of an alleged compromise reached over Kosovo.

"These reports are not true,"  Churkin  told reporters, referring to a story in Monday's edition of the daily Jutarnji List.

The paper quoted sources "close to the Russian leadership" as saying Russia would not veto a Western-backed UN resolution granting Kosovo effective independence, in return for a two-year moratorium on Kosovo UN membership.

Referring to what he called "wild speculations," Churkin said that "things were exactly where they had been yesterday or the day before yesterday ."

"As far as those fundamental differences (between Russia and the West) are concerned, they have not changed at all," he stressed.

Because of the deadlock, the Western sponsors of the resolution have temporarily put it on ice and are not expected to return to it until after a Group of Eight summit in Germany next month.

Sergei Ryabkov, head of the Europe desk at the Russian foreign ministry, told the press in Brussels on Tuesday that Moscow would only agree to a UN resolution that calls for further talks under international supervision between Belgrade and Priština on Kosovo's status.