Statement of the Serbian Prime Minister at the fourth round of Vienna talks

Honourable gentlemen,

The fact that in this round of negotiations Serbia is represented by its top-level officials clearly attests to our readiness and resolve to make a serious step forward in our today's discussion toward coming to a democratic and compromise solution to the future order of the province of Kosovo-Metohija.

Right from the start of the negotiations Serbia at every meeting has been consistently presenting some new arguments and new ideas on how to arrive at an agreement. Wishing to re-assert our constructive approach, we today, too, stand ready to offer to the Kosovo Albanians to examine together a number of very important issues, which could bring us closer to a compromise and hopefully to an agreement.

If the representatives of the Albanian side still do not wish to discuss Serbia's proposals and reject even such a possibility, we are ready to open the discussion by raising a number of stands that they themselves have been advocating.

In the course of the discussions so far one could notice three types of stands presented by Kosovo Albanians. The first one includes the Albanian view according to which Serbia has not been administering its province of Kosovo-Metohija for as long as 8 years now. The second type includes the claim that it is necessary to identify a stable, sustainable and functional solution. There is, finally, also the third type of Albanian stands which amount to saying that Serbia's proposal on substantive autonomy is a thing of the past. One should add to this third group of positions the Albanian objection, shared by a part of the international community, that Serbia's proposal on substantive autonomy allegedly exists only on paper, that it is too abstract, that it is not lifelike, that it is vague and is, ipso facto, both unsustainable and unfunctional.

Serbia, on this occasion, fully agrees that all these are substantive topics and that it is necessary for us to examine them together carefully. Let us start from the Albanian position that Serbia has not been governing its province of Kosovo-Metohija for as many as 8 years, a point raised by the Kosovo Albanians as an important argument in support of the Province's independence. Here, however, a crucial question is raised which is as follows: is the fact that the UN mission has been governing Kosovo-Metohija for 8 years an argument in favor of defining the substantive autonomy for the Albanian national minority in the Province, or should this same fact rather be  used as a decisive argument for dismembering Serbia which is a democratic state and a member of the United Nations?

After all, the United Nations did not come to Kosovo-Metohija to have a new state formed on the territory of an internationally recognized state and a member of those self-same United Nations, but to use its mandate in order to make it possible to identify, through compromise, a future status for the Province subject to full respect for international law, the UN Charter and Resolution 1244.

We point out  - and would like to discuss this - that there is an example of a province having been beyond the administration of its state not for 8 but for over a hundred years. Moreover, that administration was not under a UN mandate but indeed a colonial rule. So, not after 8 but after more than a hundred years a negotiated solution was found for the territory of Hong Kong which got the status of a special administrative area but under the clear sovereignty of China and within its territorial integrity.

We hold the view that we can all agree that this argument deserves to be  comprehensively examined and incorporated in the future process of identifying a joint solution.

The second stand that we need to discuss concerns the necessity of identifying a stable, sustainable and functional solution to the status of the Province. To claim that dismemberment of Serbia and altering its internationally recognized borders contrary to its will will bring peace, stability, sustainability and functionality in determining a solution to the future status of Kosovo and Metohija seems neither convincing nor justified nor indeed reasonable. Since I have already mentioned the example and the context for a negotiated solution to the status of Hong Kong, we could additionally make use of that analogy, all the more so as the mentioned agreement has been reached recently, i.e. no more than 10 years ago.

Stability, sustainability and functionality of the model applied in the case of Hong Kong emanate from the fact that the agreement was reached through negotiations, while recognizing a fundamental principle underpinning the modern international order, and that is respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of internationally recognized states. Equally, the case of Hong Kong is a good example showing that a stable and good solution can by no means be arrived at through unilateral actions but only through negotiations and only provided there is respect for the UN Charter and its fundamental principles. The moment unilateral steps take place is the very moment when stability, sustainability and, along with them, every kind of functionality  disappear and when chronic hotbeds  emerge instead, the crisis  exacerbates and a serious instability is created.

We should devote particular attention to the third type of Albanian stands that are, as already indicated,  shared to a certain extent by  a part of the international community. Namely, does Belgrade's proposal on substantial autonomy exist only on paper, is it really a completely abstract model which one does not know what it means, could it be sustained in reality at all and, thus, is it functional? Having heard a stand formulated this way we respond by readilly accept to discuss this and see together what the situation is precisely in reality, in real life, on the ground and not on paper.

We propose that, by following the already established analogy, we should examine in parallel and compare Serbia's paper on substantial autonomy for Kosovo-Metohija and the negotiated solution to the status of Hong Kong as a special administrative area within China. Our argument, which we would like to discuss, is that the Hong Kong model, which nobody will deny has proved a success, sustainable, stable and functional, is in itself a clear proof that our proposal on substantive autonomy is equally lifelike and secures a stable and sustainable solution to the status of the Province.

We ar strongly convinced that there is no serious reason why we should not compare, in the further course of the negotiation process, Serbia's proposal on substantive autonomy with the negotiated solution reached in the analogous case of Hong Kong. In this way we could assess together whether the idea of substantive autonomy is indeed just a paper proposal having nothing to do with real life or whether it is, after all, a realistic scenario for the solution to the future set-up of the Province.

We hold that this is an irrefutable proof of Serbia's constructive and very responsible approach to the negotiation process. We wish in this manner to jointly examine the key elements of a possible agreement. There can be no doubt that these are sustainability, stability, functionality, vitality and the prospect of prosperity. What is particularly important is that such an approach takes us to an agreement rather than to unilateral moves and, above all, to an agreement which would be in keeping with international law, the UN Charter, Resolution 1244, the  Helsinki Final Act and the Constitution of Serbia.

Since the Albanian side has so far een refusing to talk over Serbia's proposal, if Prishtina once again turned a deaf ear to the offer to discuss these mentioned stands that have come precisely from the Albanian side, I believe that one could only conclude that the Kosovo Albanians do not care about a negotiated solution and that this is why they are in principle rejecting every and any dialogue.

For its part, Serbia is ready to engage in a serious discussion and wishes to examine thoroughly the crucial topics broached here, sincerely believing that we would in this way make an important step towards a negotiated solution.

Allow me to recapitulate: in its constructive approach, Belgrade is today ready to cede to Kosovo Albanians the broadest autonomy and the highest degree of self-government enjoyed by any national minority anywhere in the world. As has been seen so far  - and this is, in fact, where the actual difference lies between the position of Belgrade and that of Kosovo Albanians in these negotiations - for Serbia there is a whole set of solution scenarios, on the only proviso that the universal principle of inviolability of borders is respected and that the sovereignty of internationally recognized states is not encroached upon.

Such an approach, honourable gentlemen, can on no grounds be placed on a par with the refusal to discuss anything but independence for Kosovo-Metohija, as set out in the Albanian proposed agreement on future good relations between two neighbouring states. And, therefore, with the full support of the state institutions and the entire general public of Serbia, I repeat that at the present point of time Serbia is offering to Kosovo Albanians more than has ever been offered to any national minority on the territory of any country. But this is indeed the final limit, beyond which not only Serbia but no other state in the world could possibly go. Anything else would be nothing but the violation of international law and of the basic regulations on which the order of present-day world rests. A possible unlawful and brutal violation of sovereignty and territorial integrity of an internationally recognized democratic state would only be a drastic instant of the policy of force and  surely could not remain without consequences which are bound to be felt - let us be fully aware of that - not only in the immediate regional environment. Therefore, gentlemen, let us seize this opportunity to take the path of compromise and mutual concessions, the path of peace, of common sense and of justice for all.

Thank you.

Download PDF document