Rice fears partition of Kosovo
The United States wants to avoid moves which can lead towards the partition of Kosovo along ethnic lines, less than three months after it orchestrated the partition of Serbia.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Friday, May 02, 2008
"What we can't let happen is that there is a sort of any kind of slippery slope toward questioning the territorial integrity of Kosovo," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana.
"We want to make certain that there are no efforts to partition Kosovo", she said.
Kosovo's Western-backed move towards independence created a huge confusion in major international organizations, including the United Nations which administrated the province since the 1998-99 war.
According to the plan drafted by former Finish President Martti Ahtisaari, Kosovo's quest for full independence will be supervised by the European Union mission, but major powers failed to reach a decision on the fate of the existing UN mission, UNMIK.
In the newly created mess, in addition to UNMIK, EU plans to have its own mission up and running by mid-June, which could lead to dual international administration with unclear mandates or share of powers.
Rice once again voiced Washington's full support for implementation of Ahtisaari proposal, urging Western allies to quickly move forward with the deployment of EU mission amid ongoing debate in Brussels whether the initial plan has been put up in rather overambitious fashion.
Rice's comments seemed to be directed to Kosovo Serbs which bitterly opposed Kosovo's declaration of independence, vowing to keep close ties with Belgrade and simultaneously boycott Albanian-led institutions in Pristina.
Serbs make up roughly 15 per cent of Kosovo's 2 million population, but some 250,000 were driven out of their homes by ethnic Albanians since international missions took over the province in mid-1999.
