Kosovo PM wants full independence after UN talks

Reuters, Mon Oct 24, 2005 5:07 AM ET By Matthew Robinson

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Kosovo will accept international "observation" or advice after United Nations mediation on its fate, but the West can no longer place conditions on its independence from Serbia, the province's ethnic Albanian prime minister says.

"There definitely cannot be any conditions or new interim phases since they are obstructing economic progress," Bajram Kosumi told Reuters in an interview before the U.N. Security Council launches talks on the future of the disputed territory at a session on Monday.

He said he expected an international "observation or advisory" mission after talks as "a psychological and practical guarantee for ethnic groups that their rights are observed."

"But Kosovo must be an independent and sovereign state."

Kosumi's comments mark a shift toward the compromise urged by the United States and European Union as they move to decide the status of the majority Albanian province, legally part of Serbia but run by the United Nations since the 1998-99 war.

But they differ from what diplomats say some Western capitals are considering -- an independent Kosovo without full sovereignty, where the international community would reserve certain powers for years to come, particularly over human rights and minority protection.

Diplomats say the West, though publicly refusing to back any particular solution, is preparing to push for "conditional independence" in talks that could last until spring next year.

Serbia says independence is impossible, conditional or not.

Serbs say Kosovo, home to scores of centuries-old Orthodox religious sites, is sacred land. A clue to the diplomatic minefield ahead was Belgrade's cancellation last week of a visit by the Slovenian president after he backed independence for Kosovo.

The West has all but written off Serbia's official offer of broad autonomy as unworkable, a red rag to 2 million Albanians -- 90 percent of the population -- who reject a return to Serb control.

"Belgrade will never have the right to decide Kosovo's future," said Kosumi. "If Belgrade was asked, Kosovo might not even exist today," he said, echoing some foreign observers who say Serbia lost the moral right to govern the province in 1999.

ETHNIC CLEANSING

Three months of NATO bombing that year forced Serbia's then leader Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his forces, accused of ethnic cleansing in a war with separatist guerrillas.

Some 10,000 ethnic Albanian civilians died and 800,000 were expelled into neighboring Albania and Macedonia.

The United Nations took control, backed by a NATO-led peace force now numbering 17,000 soldiers, still its largest.

More than six years later, Kosovo Albanians are impatient for the independence they thought won in 1999. Most are fed up with a U.N. mission perceived as overbearing and unable to revive an economy crippled by war and neglect.

But a U.N. special envoy has said the fledgling institutions are incapable of guaranteeing the rights of 100,000 Serbs, ghettoized and targeted for revenge.

Albanian mob riots against Kosovo Serbs in March 2004 killed 19 people and destroyed hundreds of homes. The two-day orgy of violence thrust Kosovo back onto the international agenda but tarnished its commitment to multi-ethnic democracy.

U.N. officials say any solution must devolve power to the Serb minority. The special envoy suggested police, justice, education, culture, media and economic development.

Albanians, who want to keep power in Pristina, fear such concessions could provide Belgrade with a foothold in Kosovo.

Kosovo will offer equal rights and opportunities to all its citizens, said Kosumi, but "division of territory or any autonomy based on ethnicity is wrong and has resulted in war."

"I agree there are fields in which Kosovo has not made enough progress," he said. "But the Kosovo government and its institutions are ready to guarantee they will work fully to achieve that progress."