Belgrade: No more Eulex talks
Belgrade will no longer negotiate the deployment of EULEX, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said on Tuesday because Serbia has already reached an agreement with the UN, "behind which stood all the UN member states"
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Wednesday, November 19, 2008
"We greatly appreciate the efforts of the international community to persuade the organs in Pristina that the road of compromise is the only road forward that will enable peace and stability in the southern province. As far as we're concerned, the talks are over," he said, and added that Serbia expects the agreement reached with the UN to be confirmed at the UN Security Council as soon as possible.
Belgrade will continue to be constructive and it will continue to do everything in order to preserve peace and stability, "but we will wait for the decision on the date of the Security Council session", Jeremic said.
The minister also voiced his expectation that the six-point plan would be confirmed at that meeting, along with a definition of the international civilian presence in the province, and the status-neutral position that Belgrade has insisted on.
"After such a decision from the Security Council, a new phase will ensue of joint efforts to establish peace and stability in the whole region," said Jeremic.
Secretary of State at the Serbian Ministry for Kosovo Oliver Ivanovic has said that it is out of the question that Eulex could be deployed in Kosovo without a relevant decision of the UN Security Council.
"The involvement of the UN Security Council is the bottom line which we will not cross. It does not matter what form this will take: a presidential statement has been mentioned as just one of the possibilities. Actually, it is important that consensus is reached among the permanent members of the Security Council," Ivanovic said, speaking in reaction to a statement by ranking United States official Stuart Jones, who said that the EU mission can be deployed even without a statement by the president of the UN Security Council.
"Within this, we are knowingly relying on our stands and those of Russia coinciding," Ivanovic said.
Ivanovic believes it is overly optimistic that the EULEX could be fully functional in early December this year, as some representatives from Brussels or Washington have suggested.
"I believe we will wait for the new US Administration to deal with the issue of Kosovo. The EU can deploy the EULEX only in places where the population will accept them, which is south of the Ibar and further away from the Serb enclaves," Ivanovic said.
