Still no agreement on Slovenia conference
No agreement has been reached over a formula that would allow both Belgrade and Pristina to take part in an informal conference in Slovenia on March 20.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Monday, March 08, 2010
Slovenia's Foreign Minister Samuel Zbogar said that the Kosovo Albanian representatives would be taking part under a formula already used in the EU format, namely, that "participating states take part without their names written", and that "UNMIK too would be invited to the gathering".
The cabinet of Serbian President Boris Tadic reacted to this by stating that such an agreement was not reached, and that Serbia still insists that Kosovo must be represented in line with UNSC Resolution 1244, as Kosovo-UNMIK.
"That is a prerequisite for Serbia participating at such a forum," Tadic said after meeting with Slovenian and Croatian Prime Ministers Borut Pahor and Jadranka Kosor in Slovenia on Friday.
He said that Serbia wants to solve the problem of the participation of Kosovo officials at this conference, adding that Kosovo officials participated in other international conferences under the UNMIK name, and that there is no reason for that not to continue.
At the same time, the Kosovo Albanian president and prime minister, Fatmir Sejdiu and Hashim Thaci, said that they would travel to Slovenia "only as representatives of the state of Kosovo".
According to media reports in Ljubljana, Zbogar would not make any further comments on this, saying only that "things change and that many details won't be harmonized until the last day".
But he did state once again that "both Tadic and Thaci confirmed their presence" at the forthcoming regional conference, "as did all other leaders of the Western Balkans countries that have been invited".
