Byzantine Blog

Ban Ki-moon for Mutually Acceptable Agreement on Kosovo Province

According to Tanjug, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon today expressed hope that upcoming negotiations on Serbian Kosovo-Metohija province will lead to mutually acceptable agreement.

“The international community must find a solution that is timely, addresses the key concerns of all communities living in Kosovo and provides clarity for Kosovo’s status,” Ban Ki-moon said.

Secretary General also welcomed the initiative of the Contact Group to conduct the new negotiations on southern Serbian province.

“The United Nations will continue to play a constructive role in the new period of engagement and continue its major role on the ground in Kosovo,” Ki-moon said, adding that the Contact Group will report back to him on the new negotiations by December 10.

Rulebook to Prevent Further Negotiating Manipulations

Meanwhile, Serbian Government has adopted the Rulebook for Talks on Kosovo-Metohija Province which will be forwarded to ambassadors of Contact Group member states.

At a press conference following the government session, Kosovo-Metohija Minister Slobodan Samardzic said that the kind of talks which have already been led in Vienna under Martti Ahtisaari must be avoided.

Minister Samardzic stressed that the mediator in the talks must not be allowed to breach the key negotiating rules, which was the case with Ahtisaari in Vienna. In order to prevent further manipulations, the rules of negotiations must be clearly formulated which means that the subject, length and format of the negotiations must be defined.

Ahtisaari Plan Dropped by the Contact Group

Serbian Government is otherwise satisfied with the preparations for the talks taking place within the Contact Group, given that “Ahtisaari plan” has been dropped as a subject or guideline for upcoming negotiations.

Samardzic said that details of the Rulebook for the talks, adopted by the Serbian government, will be first made known to the Contact Group and then presented to the public.

Ahtisaari Plan R.I.P.

Excerpt from Dr. Vojin Joksimovich’s July 9 lecture titled “Has Cold War II commenced?,” a straightforward and uncomplicated overview of the situation, reminding how the issue of Kosovo-Metohija province morphed over the past few years.

“[...] Former Finnish President, Marti Ahtisaari was appointed in 2005 as the special UN envoy to “mediate” the interethnic conflict. He has been the wrong man for the job from day one as illustrated with his statement that Serbia must give in because it is guilty as a nation—nobody must be allowed to pin a feeling of national guilt on any group of people, only individuals proclaimed by many including the ICTY. Recently BND sent the documentation to the UN Secretary General accusing Ahtisaari that he took the bribe from the Albanian mafia.

“On March 26, 2007 Ahtisaari submitted a report to the UN Security Council recommending Kosovo independence supervised by the EU with continued presence of the NATO troops on the ground. In my humble opinion, the Ahtisaari approach has been designed to shift the intractable situation to somebody else and if it provokes either the Serbs or Albanians, or both, so be it. Then they would be blamed for the impending disaster. Turning water into wine is nothing compared to transforming the republic of heroin, black hole of Europe, into a model democratic multi-ethnic state. But that is the miracle Ahtisaari has come up with. [...]”

Cartoon by Toso Borkovic (Serbia): Reflections of the International Law in different Kosovo mirrors.