Rice urges Serbia to accept the “new Kosovo”
The United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Serbia on Wednesday to “accept the resolution” of Kosovo’s status and move faster towards the European integrations in a move influential Republican senator George Voinovich described as hasty considering the lack of infrastructure needed for stability of volatile province.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Thursday, February 14, 2008
"I do know that this is going to be an extraordinarily difficult period of time for the Serbian people. And what the United States will be doing is offering a hand of friendship, saying that the status of Kosovo, and its resolution, will allow Serbia to look forward and to move on then with what it needs to do," Rice told Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
"I'm very, very worried, Madam Secretary, about what is going to happen there, because I'm getting mixed signals. I think probably they're going to declare their independence. The European Union is going to go along with it. But I'm just really fearful that the infrastructure that was set out in the plan that was negotiated may not be there to get the job done. And if that goes in the wrong direction, I think as you know it is going to cause real problem in our goal of bringing that part of the world into Europe," Voinovich said.
Rice said that the Bush administration held two top-level meetings in past several days in order to seriously tackle the Kosovo issue, and had held a number of consultations with the European Union countries to ensure the smooth transition of the province to independent, but supervised country.
"The EU is sending a police and justice mission there to back up NATO troops providing security, and protecting the rights and religious shrines of Kosovo's Serb minority is a high priority for all those concerned," Rice told lawmakers.
