Russia dismisses Kosovo statehood without Serb agreement

Russia dug in its heels on Kosovo on July 9, insisting that a UN resolution on the breakaway province would not get through the Security Council if it was unacceptable to Serbia. "Any solution is possible on the basis of agreement by both sides involved. Any other decision cannot make it through the security council," the Russian foreign affairs minister, Sergei Lavrov, said at a news conference in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, where he was attending a regional ministerial meeting. Lavrov did not say Russia would use its veto in the security council, but his statement was the strongest indication yet that Russia would block any resolution paving the way for Kosovo's independence from Serbia. The US appears to be resigned to a long delay on the issue after confidently predicting that Kosovo's status would be resolved in "weeks and not months." At the weekend, Dan Fried, the US assistant secretary of state for European affairs, told delegates at a NATO conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia, that he hoped Kosovo's future could be resolved in the months leading up to the alliance's next summit meeting in Romania next April. Kosovo, still officially a province of Serbia, has been administered by the UN and NATO since a 78-day NATO-led air war halted a Serb crackdown on Albanians in Kosovo in 1999. Albanians, who form 90 percent of the territory's population of 2 million, want independence, but the Serbian political leadership is opposed. Diplomats are considering putting forward a new draft that would appeal more to Moscow, possibly by extending a 120-day deadline for talks, after Russia's rejection of two previous draft resolutions in the Security Council. Russia wants the Serbs and the Kosovo Albanians to restart negotiations even though the UN special envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, who drew up a blueprint for Kosovo's eventual independence, said more talks would be pointless. There are fears that Albanian impatience with their political limbo will erupt into violence again. In March 2004 about 30 people died when Albanians and Serbs clashed. In a report to the Security Council last week, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, warned that if the province's "status remains undefined, there was a real risk that the progress achieved by the UN and the provisional institutions in Kosovo can begin to unravel." US officials had been suggesting the US could recognize Kosovo's independence unilaterally if Russia continued to drag its feet. But the EU's desire for the UN's seal of approval has forced Washington to back off. The EU is dangling membership to Serbia in return for cooperation on Kosovo. But Serbia's political leadership continues to rule out independence, even though opinion polls show that Kosovo is a low priority for the public. Serbia's minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, said at the weekend that Serbia rejected the idea it should give up Kosovo and choose a future within the EU instead. "We categorically refuse the American invitation that Serbia should accept a new Albanian state crated on its territory," he told the Beta news agency.