The Kosovo Compromise project promoted in Vienna
The Kosovo Compromise project was promoted in Vienna on Tuesday with a panel composed of Aleksandar Simic, Advisor to Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, Serbia’s ambassador to OSCE Miroslava Beham, and the director of the project Aleksandar Mitic.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Wednesday, November 07, 2007
At the panel, Simic said the fourth round of direct talks between Belgrade and Pristina - held in Vienna on Monday - showed that it is now up to the European Union to "make a move" since it has "the greatest capability to offer a solution which would make the Kosovo Albanians think seriously about the advantages of the Serbian proposals".
He also urged the Contact Group Troika to say clearly what its process is all about - whether it is to discuss the status of Kosovo or not - since its 14 working points did not touch on status specifically.
"Does this mean that the mediators believe that it is too early for a status?", Simic asked.
He added that during the Monday talks in Vienna, the Kosovo Albanian delegation « ridiculed » the Serbian example of Hong Kong, saying that Belgrade speaks about « Asian, not European standards ».
« However, we believe that the success of the Hong Kong solution has proven that the Asian standards were quite high (...) anyhow, our objective is not to transplant the model of Hong Kong to Kosovo, but to illustrate why a compromise solution based on international law was possible, sustainable and functional », Kostunica's counsellor said..
"We presented at the last round the Hong Kong example, some other time we will maybe propose the example of South Tirol or the Aland Islands (...) we will not stop coming out with arguments in favor of fulfilling the legitimate interests of the Kosovo Albanians and the protection of international law", Simic added.
The Vienna promotion was the third one in the row for the Kosovo Compromise project - after Belgrade in early October and Brussels later than month.
