Talks on Kosovo status due to begin despite standards fail

PRAVDA (RUSSIAN FEDERATION) 10:36 2005-09-26

The United Nations and its member countries understand that Kosovo cannot stay under U.N. management forever and this is why the beginning of talks on its final status would probably be approved, as expected, UNMIK chief Soren Jessen-Petersen told.

In his address of the U.N. General Assembly in the evening of Sept. 22, he said sufficient progress has been made in Kosovo for the talks on its final status to begin.

"I am certain that the talks on the final status of Kosovo will be under way by the end of this year. I believe it is becoming more clear that this is a process, that progress has been made and that there are still shortcomings," Jessen-Petersen said.

The U.N. special envoy for the assessment of standards in Kosovo, Kai Eide, is expected to give a recommendation to Secretary General Kofi Annan by the end of this or the beginning of next month, on whether the talks on the final status of the province should begin, Beta reports.

In the meantime the Council of Aca Marovic Primary School from Kosovo Polje and Coordinating Center for Kosovo and Metohija municipal administrator Sladjana Denic asked the previous week for an answer from the appropriate institutions in Serbia to the question whether on Monday, September 26, classes in Serbian are to begin for 138 students in the St. Sava Educational Center in the village of Bresje near Kosovo Polje.

In a letter to Serbian education minister Slobodan Vuksanovic, prime minister Vojislav Kostunica, president Boris Tadic and Coordinating Center for Kosovo and Metohija president Sanda Raskovic-Ivic, they also asked whether classes would be organized in basements and private houses in accordance with the position of representatives of the Ministry of Education at a meeting in Gracanica a few days ago.

At a gathering of parents and students of the two primary and one secondary school housed in the St. Sava building, representatives of the Serbian Ministry of Education promised to inform the school directors and respective school boards by today where and how classes would be organized if the decree of the civil administrator of Kosovo proclaiming the educational center a multiethnic institution remains in effect.

Because of "the undefined policy and position of the Ministry of Education with respect to the beginning of Serbian language classes in Aca Marovic and Vuk Karadzic schools in the St. Sava building, most parents have already asked for transfer papers in order to enroll their children in other primary schools in central Kosovo," she added.

Today is the 22nd day of the 2005/06 school year but no child of Serbian nationality has yet entered the classroom even though instructors, professors, teachers and directors are at work every day.

The parents have made their decision because they do not want their children attending classes in the same building with Albanian students who are being instructed, they emphasize, by former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KIM Info-Service reports.