Ischinger: The EU goal is a compromise solution
The EU envoy in the mediating troika for Kosovo, Wolfgang Ischinger, said that Brussels favored a compromise and was opposed to a unilateral solution for the status of Kosovo.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Wednesday, October 10, 2007
"It will be better for all if the final solution is a result of negotiations, not a unilateral one," Ischinger told a Russian daily, after a visit to Moscow on Monday.
Asked whether the EU or its members will recognize Kosovo's unilaterally proclaimed independence if no results are achieved by December 10 and the troika's report to the U.N. secretary general, Ischinger replied that "the EU goal is a compromise solution."
"And we are doing everything to make that happen," he said, adding that he believed "the EU will remain united even after December 10, regardless of the outcome of negotiations."
He, however, also said that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had on several occasions pointed out that the current situation in Kosovo could not continue. After the talks in Moscow, Ischinger said that he did not agree with Russia's stand that the solution for Kosovo should be a universal one, which means applicable to the unrecognized republics in the former Soviet Union.
"Kosovo is a unique case and cannot be a precedent either for Abkhazia or South Ossetia," Ischinger said, adding that he had failed to convince his Russian partners of that.
The European diplomat went on to say that reaching an agreement between Belgrade and Pristina would not be easy, but was still possible, and added that the two sides "should be helped in reaching it."
