Rice Warns Kosovo Against Independence Monday, July 23, 2007 11:27 AM
AP, Associated Press
WASHINGTON-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is warning Kosovo officials not to declare independence unilaterally and to continue with diplomatic efforts, the State Department said Monday.
The meeting between Rice and officials from the breakaway province comes days after the U.N. Security Council set aside a resolution that Russia called a hidden route to independence.
As the talks began, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Rice planned to "underline the fact that nobody gains by trying to short-circuit the diplomatic process that is under way."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, seen here 19 July 2007, was urging patience on Kosovo leaders Monday, after the United States and European allies shelved a UN bid to secure independence for the Serbian province. Photo: AFP
The United States and the European Union said Friday they would move the forum for deciding Kosovo's status from the Security Council to the Contact Group on Kosovo, which includes representatives from the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Russia.
The U.N. Security Council resolution on Kosovo's future was set aside Friday in the face of a possible Russian veto.
The Washington talks follow a comment by Kosovo's prime minister, Agim Ceku, suggesting that the province's parliament should adopt its own resolution setting Nov. 28 as a possible date for declaring independence.
Ceku will be among a group of officials and politicians from the province, including its president and the speaker of its assembly, who were to meet Monday with Rice and other U.S. officials, including national security adviser Stephen Hadley.
In April, the U.N.'s special envoy on Kosovo, Martti Ahtisaari, recommended Kosovo be granted internationally supervised independence but his plan was defeated at the UN Security Council.
The latest version of the resolution calls for four months of intensive negotiations between Kosovo's ethnic Albanian independence-seeking majority and the province's Serb minority, which wants to remain as part of Serbia.
It drops an automatic route to independence if talks fail. But it would hand the administration of Kosovo from the United Nations to the European Union after 120 days, which means the EU would be the key decision-maker in the province.
Kosovo Albanians will likely tell Rice and Hadley that patience among Musli mAlbanians in Kosovo is running thin and that further delays could inflame public opinion. Moderate forces in Kosovo represented by the delegation are under pressure from more radical parties and the public to show that they will deliver independence.
U.S. officials have said that despite the delay, the Bush administration fully supports independence.
Serbia's foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, is also scheduled to meet with Rice in Washington Thursday.
WASHINGTON-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is warning Kosovo officials not to declare independence unilaterally and to continue with diplomatic efforts, the State Department said Monday.
The meeting between Rice and officials from the breakaway province comes days after the U.N. Security Council set aside a resolution that Russia called a hidden route to independence.
As the talks began, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Rice planned to "underline the fact that nobody gains by trying to short-circuit the diplomatic process that is under way."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, seen here 19 July 2007, was urging patience on Kosovo leaders Monday, after the United States and European allies shelved a UN bid to secure independence for the Serbian province. Photo: AFP
The United States and the European Union said Friday they would move the forum for deciding Kosovo's status from the Security Council to the Contact Group on Kosovo, which includes representatives from the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Russia.
The U.N. Security Council resolution on Kosovo's future was set aside Friday in the face of a possible Russian veto.
The Washington talks follow a comment by Kosovo's prime minister, Agim Ceku, suggesting that the province's parliament should adopt its own resolution setting Nov. 28 as a possible date for declaring independence.
Ceku will be among a group of officials and politicians from the province, including its president and the speaker of its assembly, who were to meet Monday with Rice and other U.S. officials, including national security adviser Stephen Hadley.
In April, the U.N.'s special envoy on Kosovo, Martti Ahtisaari, recommended Kosovo be granted internationally supervised independence but his plan was defeated at the UN Security Council.
The latest version of the resolution calls for four months of intensive negotiations between Kosovo's ethnic Albanian independence-seeking majority and the province's Serb minority, which wants to remain as part of Serbia.
It drops an automatic route to independence if talks fail. But it would hand the administration of Kosovo from the United Nations to the European Union after 120 days, which means the EU would be the key decision-maker in the province.
Kosovo Albanians will likely tell Rice and Hadley that patience among Musli mAlbanians in Kosovo is running thin and that further delays could inflame public opinion. Moderate forces in Kosovo represented by the delegation are under pressure from more radical parties and the public to show that they will deliver independence.
U.S. officials have said that despite the delay, the Bush administration fully supports independence.
Serbia's foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, is also scheduled to meet with Rice in Washington Thursday.
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