June 16, 2007

Statement by the American envoy for Kosovo Albanians, Frank Wisner, that more talks on status of the province are necessary is the official admittance that Ahtisaari independence plan is dead.

"We talked about the possibility of a resolution that might include a period of further discussion about status," Wisner said in the aftermath of his meeting with Kosovo Albanians.

"If there is to be some further discussion of some time-limited basis, it would be to prove that every effort has been exhausted to achieve an agreement on status... to make it clear to the world that every avenue was pursued," said Wisner.

Wisner's statement comes in the aftermath of the meeting of the Contact Group countries in Paris that excluded Russia.

Prior to the meeting, Washington was threatening a unilateral recognition of Kosovo's independence. However, Wisner's statement indicates that the threat may have been a bluff that failed despite Russian absence from the meeting.

The statement by Italy's Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema, moreover, indicates that the Contact Group may have firmly rejected unilateralism in recognizing Kosovo's independence at the Paris meeting, a death-blow to the occupying Kosovo Albanian regime in Pristina.

"We're working for a solution based on international law and which is sanctioned by the United Nations ... We have not abandoned this hope," D'Alema told a news conference at Rome's foreign press club.

D'Alema also added that Europe will not allow to get pressured in a decision in order to simply avert violence that Kosovo Albanian extremists are threatening.

"We're not worried by the fact that this might need some time. We are not in a particular hurry," said D'Alema.

The Pristina regime has on numerous occasions expressed its frustration at the delay.

Prior to the Paris meeting, Kosovo Albanian regime in Pristina demanded that UN take a vote on Ahtisaari's independence plan. Fully aware that the Ahtisaari plan will be voted down at the UN, the Pristina regime was touting a so-called Plan B that rests on informal promises that Washington is allegedly ready to recognize Pristina's unilateral declaration of independence.

However, in the aftermath of President Bush's visit to Bulgaria, Bulgaria's Deputy Foreign Minister Lyubomir Kyuchukov said that unilateral declaration of independence "would have a serious destabilizing effect not only on northern Kosovo, but also in southern Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and all of southeastern Europe," Kyuchukov said.

After his talks with the Serbian President Boris Tadic, D'Alema, in fact, reiterated Bulgaria's position that unilateral recognition of Kosovo without a UN Security Council consent, as suggested by the US, would be "a bad solution."

During his talks with the Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, D'Alema also heard that "Serbia will not negotiate independence of its province because any form of independence would represent a breach of the U.N. Charter".

Prior to his departure to Belgrade, however, D'Alema expressed frustration as to the actual position of Belgrade on the status issue.

"If it's unthinkable to have Serb sovereignty and at the same time they don't want independence for Kosovo, then what do they [Belgrade] want? That the status quo go on indefinitely? That U.N. forces remain indefinitely in the Balkans? That doesn't seem to me to be in anyone's interests," he said.

Having successfully sidestepped Ahtisaari's plan, Belgrade is now active in removing EUs sovereignty objection over Kosovo by hinging the Stabilization and Association Agreement on EU states accepting that Kosovo must remain part of Serbia.

"[W]e strongly insist on the EU respecting our internationally recognized borders and the fact that Kosovo is an inalienable and integral part of Serbia's territory," said Kostunica in the aftermath of his meeting with the EU Enlargement Commissioner Ollie Rehn.

However, the most volatile element in the Kosovo diplomatic mix remains the Kosovo Albanian regime in Pristina.

"It is very important to maintain the calm and discipline," Wisner told the Pristina regime while delivering a message that, both, Plan A and B are dead.

In their final communiqué after a two-day meeting in Brussels, the defense ministers also issued a stern warning to Pristina that "NATO will not tolerate any threats to a safe and secure environment in Kosovo and will react swiftly and resolutely".

By safe and secure, NATO was referring here to their troops and not necessarily of the Kosovo Serbs forced to live in ghettos.

After seeing Ahtisaari plan come and now go, then being warned that unilateral declaration of independence is not an option and now utterly humiliated by being told that Kosovo cannot have an Albanian flag, the Pristina regime has been reduced to an expandable commodity used to negotiate the terms of Belgrade's entry into EU.

A graphic designer from Pristina, Elbunit Krasniqi, perhaps the most eloquently describes where this proposed Muslim state is headed for.

"I would use a light green background and a toilet sign,” said Krasniqi.