ICJ to announce advisory opinion on Kosovo today

The opinion would be stated based on the UN General Assembly's demand submitted on October 2008 after a resolution was adopted to ask the ICJ for its opinion on the issue.

The reading of the opinion would be held at 15:00 CET. There would be officials from Belgrade and Pristina in attendance, along with ambassadors from all the countries that participated in the public debate of the issue.

Serbia's chief attorney Sasa Obradovic said that the most important parts of the decision would be read first, which would last about two hours.

"After that, the opinion would be given to the UN General Assembly, which had the authority to ask for this opinion. This will end the process before the ICJ, and there will be no appeals, the legal part of the process ends and after that, the political process would continue within the institutions of the UN," he said.

Obradovic added that he expects an objective ruling from the court, despite speculation that the judges were under strong pressure.

Serbian President Boris Tadic said that Serbia is ready for all possible opinions from the court, but that Belgrade expects that the opinion would state that the Kosovo Albanians do not have the right to an ethnically motivated secession from Serbia.

He said that he expects that the decision would be based on the basic principles of international law and that it would not stimulate a new wave of secession in the world, but rather, leave good, stable effects.

He said that Serbia will be open for discussions "through all institutional systems, with the opposition and non-governmental organizations" internally after the ICJ decision, and that the Serbian citizens would be informed of what the state would be doing next in the fight to preserve Kosovo.

KFOR Commander General Markus Bentler said that he has no indications that there could be any incidents in Kosovo after the ICJ gives its opinion, but added that KFOR would be ready to face any potential problems.

He said that KFOR has prepared well and that its soldiers would be visibly present in Kosovo today.

Serbs in Kosovo expect that the ICJ opinion would be in Serbia's advantage, while Albanians believe that the opinion would not have any effect on the independence proclamation, which they believe is irreversible.

Kosovo Serbs in Gracanica stated that they expect that the ICJ decision would work to Serbia's advantage, but would do nothing to improve the situation of Serbs living in Kosovo.

Albanians in Pristina believe that the opinion would be open-ended and that both Belgrade and the Kosovo Albanian institutions would be able to interpret the opinion according to their interests, but also believe that it can have no real effect on Kosovo's proclaimed independence.