Serbia rejects Kosovo independence amid UN review

Reuters, 27 May 2005 20:50:45 GMT By Irwin Arieff

UNITED NATIONS, May 27 (Reuters) - A Serb official on Friday ruled out independence as an option in an international process to decide Kosovo's final status, but the Serb province's U.N. governor said Kosovo's Serbs disagreed with Belgrade's hard-line stand and were being harmed by it.

Despite the conflicting views expressed during a public meeting of the U.N. Security Council, Kosovo Gov. Soren Jessen-Petersen said he would go ahead with the launch of a U.N. review as preparation for a final determination of whether Kosovo should remain a part of Serbia or be split off.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a report to the council issued earlier this week, told the 15-nation council the review should be launched this summer despite his misgivings over the pace of progress achieved by Kosovo leaders in meeting international standards.

Annan planned to name a special U.N. envoy next week to conduct the review, Jessen-Petersen said. Kai Eide, Norway's ambassador to NATO, is to get the job, diplomats say.

The United Nations, which has administered the province of 2 million people since the Balkan wars of the 1990s, has set out a list of standards on human rights, security, law and democracy that Kosovo must show it is trying to meet before the issue of its eventual status can be taken up.

The world body took over running Kosovo after a 1999 NATO bombing campaign to halt Serb repression of its ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the population.

Tens of thousands of Serbs fled the province to escape Albanians bent on revenge for Belgrade's harsh rule, and Belgrade now argues Kosovo's provisional government is doing too little to encourage Serbs to return home and protect those who have already done so.

But Jessen-Petersen said there was evidence Serbs enjoyed "increased freedom of movement" and slammed Belgrade for not giving them a clear signal to participate in political life.

"Progress in establishing a fully multiethnic Kosovo and integrating all communities will remain limited as long as one ethnic group is pressured to stay outside the political, economic and social processes," he said.

"The fault for this obstacle toward progress does not lie in Pristina. The victims, however, are the Kosovo Serbs who are eager to participate at this crucial moment in time," he said. "Belgrade would help the Kosovo Serb community, and itself, by moving from reticence and delay to commitment and engagement."

Nebojsa Covic, Serbia's spokesman on Kosovo, promptly dismissed those comments as "incorrect and unfair."

While Belgrade and Pristina shared the goal of making Kosovo a multiethnic society, Serbia's territorial integrity and borders "cannot be questioned," he said.

"Serbs are not against participation, but please do not ask them to participate in something that would lead to an independent Kosovo," which would be undemocratic and would destabilize the region, Covic later told reporters.