Confusion over new U.S. ideas on Kosovo
The United States officials hinted at a series of fresh ideas aimed at breaking the deadlock in the Kosovo status process and the Iranian nuclear program, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, and the International Herald Tribune reported Monday.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Tuesday, October 30, 2007
However, State Department officials immediately rejected those reports as speculations, leading to conclusions that all those hints were, in a fact, trial balloons released ahead of crucial period in negotiations over those two controversial international issues.
"Billions of euros injected into Kosovo's budget and a 12-year freeze on its political status, followed by a referendum, form the main planks of a potential settlement for Kosovo under discussion by US diplomats," the BIRN report said.
Almost simultaneously, the IHT reported that "the U.S. is prepared to offer concessions to Russia over the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty to try to persuade Moscow to soften its positions on Kosovo and
Iran".
"Those stories are absolutely baseless," the State Department Curtis Cooper said.
However, both stories were based on the current political deadlock in relations between Washington and Moscow over future status of Kosovo and possible third set of economic sanctions against Iran over its
refusal to stop the nuclear program.
"The US has two options: to recognise, together with a few other countries, Kosovo's independence and to cause thereby many global and regional problems; or to drop formal independence for some years, relaxing tension in the region and boosting Kosovo's economy,"
BIRN quoted unnamed sources as saying.
