U.S. amendments to Serbia's resolution

Serbia has sent its draft to the UN General Assembly, and it is expected to be put up for a debate and vote on September 9.

The United States embassy in Belgrade has in the meantime denied that this country was preparing its own "counter-resolution".

The Serbian diplomatic mission in New York told Politika that attempts to reach an agreement over an amendment to the Serbian resolution had not yielded results, "because there is no common position regarding Kosovo's independence even among the EU member states".

According to the daily's source, the U.S. has now moved the issue to Brussels to deal with, and the EU is tasked to influence, in direct contact, those member-states governments that have not recognized Kosovo, to accept amendments created by the Kosovo Albanian allies.

The amendments are reportedly focusing on changing of the second article of the Serbian resolution which calls for dialogue on all open issues.

Proponents of Kosovo's unilateral secession also do not like the last paragraph of the draft's preamble, which states that unilateral secessions cannot be a way for solving territorial issues.

Politika also writes that they do not like the prospect of having Kosovo on the agenfa of the next, 66th session of the UN General Assembly, and that they aim to sever the connection between the Kosovo case and this UN body.

However, Serbia is vitally interested in keeping Kosovo on the agenda of the UN General Assembly, the newspaper quoted as anonymous source.

The push now coming from the sponsors of the Kosovo Albanian UDI is in fact aimed aat declaring that the issue of Kosovo has been closed, the article asserts.

When it comes to the UN Security Council, the daily's New York-based source stated that the institution, which gives its permanent members veto powers, has not adopted a single new resolution on Kosovo since Resolution 1244, because the five permanent members are deeply divided.

This suits Serbia since there is no consent to adopt a new resolution, but Belgrade cannot count on some new action that would go in Serbia's favor precisely because of these differences in opinion, writes Politika.

"Serbia is addressing the UN General Assembly because it is the only place where something could be achieved considering that there is no veto there," the article concludes.