Byzantine Blog

Weakened OSCE Fails to Adopt Kosovo Declaration and Joint Political Declaration

At the annual OSCE meeting attended by more than forty foreign ministers in Madrid, the decision about the extension of the OSCE Mission in southern Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija was blocked from being adopted. The joint political declaration was also not adopted, due to the “deepening rift” between United States and Russia.

The final OSCE document cites that the failure to adopt a joint declaration has weakened the organization, leaving it without the political roadmap and less effective, the German DPA agency reports.

The decision about the future of its Kosovo mission has been postponed. The US and its Western allies have failed to persuade Russia to revoke its decision on suspending Russian participation in the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty. Reportedly, Russian President Vladimir Putin has on Friday signed a law coming into force on December 12, about Russia’s withdrawal from the CFE Treaty.

Serbia Blocked Adoption of Declaration on its Kosovo Province: OSCE Mission in Kosovo to End in Case of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence

At the OSCE ministerial meeting in Madrid on Friday, Serbia blocked adoption of a final declaration on its Kosovo-Metohija province because the draft document included a determinant that the OSCE Mission in Kosovo should be extended for another year, “regardless of the outcome of the status process.”

“That element is absolutely unacceptable to Serbia,” Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic told Tanjug.

“We believe that the status process is of essential importance for the province’s future, the way of governing the province, peace and stability in the region as a whole. In keeping with that, the process may be observed only as a whole, we may not separate any aspect of international presence or administration from the package,” Jeremic told the Serbian national agency.

He stressed that Serbian stand is that such issues have to be resolved “with a single joint decision, a single joint document, just as it was done in 1999 with UN Security Council Resolution 1244.”

“So, I believe that the future of international presence in Kosovo, including the OSCE, may be regulated exclusively with an appropriate decision of the UN Security Council and may not be backed at the OSCE ministerial meeting, outside of what is going to happen in the status process,” said Jeremic.

“Since decisions are made through a consensus in the OSCE, Serbia disagreed with such a text. Serbia offered the text to be amended in order to reflect our standpoint, but some countries did not agree with the amendment and that is why the final statement on our province of Kosovo was not adopted,” said Jeremic.