Courting disaster

Kosovo to declare independence, Serbia claims

Mark Tran

Kosovo is set to declare independence from Serbia next week, the Serbian government claimed today, amid fears that the move will trigger renewed instability in the region.

As speculation mounts about the timing of Kosovo's secession, the Serbian minister for Kosovo said his government has information that the breakaway province will declare independence on February 17.

Slobodan Samardzic said in a statement that "the government of Serbia is receiving relevant information" that Kosovo's government will "illegally declare the unilateral independence of Kosovo on Sunday, February 17".

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Samardzic's statement was issued after a meeting with a senior EU official, Stefan Lehne, who was in Belgrade to clarify EU plans to send a European policing and administrative mission to Kosovo.

Serbia has rejected the EU mission, saying it would be a prelude to the province's independence. Samardzic said that Serbia will not sign any cooperation agreement with the EU, arguing it would amount to "the signature for the independence of Kosovo".

Kosovo has been under UN administration since Nato expelled Serbian forces in an air campaign in 1999. Albanians, who form 90% of the province's population of 1.9 million, have been clamouring for independence.

Kosovo's prime minister, Hashim Thaci, said about 100 countries are ready to recognise the province's independence as soon as it is declared.

"We have confirmation that about 100 countries are ready to recognise Kosovo's independence immediately after we declare it. We will have a powerful and massive recognition," he told a news conference.

Thaci was speaking after his regular weekly meeting with Joachim Ruecker, head of the UN's Kosovo mission. Thaci did not name any countries or specify when he plans to declare independence.

The issue of Kosovan independence has been a source of considerable anxiety for European diplomats who fear it will mean a return to instability in the Balkans.

Serbia has warned the west of serious consequences to secession, suggesting that Kosovo could be partitioned, as Serbs in the north of the province align themselves with Belgrade, steeling Bosnian Serbs to do the same and seek independence, creating a Serbian republic, or "Republika Srpska", in Bosnia.

The Serbian government has ruled out the threat of military action against Kosovo, but experts have warned of destabilisation efforts as "volunteers" - a euphemism for paramilitaries - from Serbia proper would go to "help" the Kosovo Serbs.

Pro-western politicians in Belgrade, who oppose Kosovo's independence, have also raised the prospect of Serbia lurching further to the right as their more nationalist counterparts seek a closer alliance with Russia.

The prospect of independence has already led to arguments in Serbia. This week, Serbia's nationalist prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, blocked the signing of a pact between Belgrade and the EU in an attempt to delay what seems like Kosovo's inevitable secession. The EU has been trying to soften the blow of Kosovo's independence from Serbia by promising Belgrade EU membership.

Senior EU officials are furious that Kostunica refuses to allow pro-European members of his government to travel to Brussels to sign a pact that would lead to trade and travel liberalisation and encourage Serbia's EU membership ambitions, an aim supported by most Serbs.

Olli Rehn, the EU commissioner for enlargement, said Kostunica had broken a promise to him and said that politicians in Belgrade were filing for divorce between Serbia and the EU before they had even been married.

Kostunica's decision to veto the signing ceremony in Brussels is likely to bring down his government only days after a pro-European, Boris Tadic, was elected Serbian president.

Kostunica has abandoned his pro-western Democratic party coalition allies in favour of an impromptu alliance with the extreme nationalist opposition, the Serbian Radical party.

Original article posted here.