Slovenian president's visit to Serbia cancelled over Kosovo initiative

ADN KRONOS INTERNATIONAL (ITALY) 21-Oct-05 11:22

Belgrade, 21 Oct. (AKI) - The Serbian authorities have cancelled the upcoming visit by Slovenian president Janez Drnovsek after his controversial comments that Kosovo should be granted independence triggered a storm of protest. In what seemed an ambitious diplomatic initiative, Drnovsek on Wednesday proposed an eight-point plan, which would give Kosovo full independence in five years, and proposed to host talks, expected to start in November, on the final status of the province, whose majority ethnic Albanians demand independence. Drnovsek

'I was expecting your visit, scheduled for November 2, this year with great joy", said president of Serbia and Montenegro, Svetozar Marovic, in a letter canceling Drnovsek's visit. But, he added, "your statement that 'Kosovo independence is the only realistic choice, with fulfillment of certain conditions', has caused bewilderment and protests. For this reason, I am convinced that the atmosphere in which your visit would take place, as well as its results, wouldn't fulfill our mutual goals", said Marovic.

Slovenian foreign minister Dimitrij Rupel, who currently chairs the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), stepped in to try to resolve the row. In a phone call to Serbia-Montenegro foreign minister, Vuk Draskovic, on Thursday, Rupel said that a unified stand of the Slovenian leaders was that Kosovo solution must be found in talks between Belgrade, Pristina and the international community, "a solution to which Serbia wouldn't agree, can't be a good solution", Rupel said.

But Belgrade remained firm and in a diplomatic note said Serbia and Montenegro "cannot, and would not, under any circumstances accept proclamation of an independent Kosovo state on its state territory and within its internationally recognized borders".

Drnovsek was sending his aide to Belgrade today to explain Slovenian president's plan, which he has already submitted to UN secretary general Kofi Annan, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barosso, and members of the six-nation Contact group for Kosovo.

Vajgl will later proceed to Pristina to elaborate the plan to Kosovo ethnic Albanian leaders.

Drnovsek's plan actually contains all the demands put forward by the Serbian government, regarding security and local self-rule for some 100.000 Serbs remaining in Kosovo, to which the international community has given little attention.

But Belgrade continues to object to independence, though it has no authority in the province which has been under UN control since 1998.

In a rare display of political solidarity, even the opposition Democratic Party in Serbia, said that the cancellation of Drnovsek's visit was a "normal reaction of a normal state at a proposal of its disintegration".