By DPA
Belgrade : The Serbian parliament Wednesday began debating a resolution on Kosovo, preparing a diplomatic war with countries willing to recognize the province once it declares independence.
“At this moment a powerful resolution which parliament will pass today must be our last line of defence from violence and unilateral independence,” Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica told the assembly opening the debate.
The 8-point document orders a “reconsideration of diplomatic and all other ties” with countries which recognize Kosovo if it declares independence.
It also states that international agreements, explicitly including the Stabilization and Association Agreement which would bring Serbia a step closer to European Union membership, must preserve “the territorial integrity and sovereignty” of Serbia.
The Kosovo leadership, representing the 90-per-cent Albanian majority, is expected to declare independence shortly after the second round of Serbian presidential elections on Feb 3.
This step is to be followed by recognition from the United States, the majority of EU states and most countries in the region. A “law implementing” the mission of judicial, police and customs officials would eventually replace the existing UN administration.
Belgrade’s draft resolution also insists that the EU mission may not deploy on Serbian soil – in Kosovo – without Belgrade’s approval. The EU is nevertheless expected to reach an internal agreement to send the mission some time in January.
The declaration, criticizing NATO over its “illegal” intervention against Yugoslavia in 1999, also proclaims Serbian military neutrality at least until voters choose differently in a referendum.
However, it remains unclear which of the steps outlined in the draft declaration Belgrade would actually take.
Serbia joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme a year ago and may be offered to sign the Stabilization and Association Agreement as early as next month.
Serbia’s uneasy ruling coalition groups President Boris Tadic’s Democratic Party (DS) and the small G17 party, both pro-European, with Kostunica’s nationalist Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS).
The declaration is a compromise allowing the coalition to survive until presidential elections on January 20 and the run-off two weeks later, in which Tadic would need DSS support to defeat ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) chief Tomislav Nikolic.
Tadic and G17 insist that Serbia must remain on its European path regardless of Kosovo. Both parties also insist on Serbia’s sovereignty over the province, but refuse to link Kosovo with Serbia’s integration in the EU.
“We can neither keep Kosovo nor secure an economic perspective for our citizens with isolation from the rest of the world and war,” Tadic said in parliament ahead of the debate.
Kostunica, who is in power though the DSS has fewer seats than the DS, may however have other thoughts once Kosovo is released to independence. He may drop Tadic and ally with Nikolic – who regards the declaration as too soft – for a hardline nationalist cabinet.
All Serbian leaders have ruled out the possibility of a military reaction, which would effectively mean war against NATO, which has been keeping the peace in Kosovo since 1999.
Most local analysts read the Kosovo resolution as “daily politics”- an alibi for the loss of Kosovo that would produce no consequences. Kosovo Serb leader Oliver Ivanovic has described the document as “nonsense” from a “frog’s perspective.”
But some critics in Belgrade have warned that the EU and NATO would not be harmed by Serbia’s absence, while Serbia would “hurt very much.”
Meanwhile, in Pristina, the UN administration, which has governed Kosovo since mid-1999, dismissed the upcoming Serbian declaration.
“Whatthe Serbian parliament does is up to Serbian deputies to decide,” the spokesman for the UN Mission in Kosovo, Alexander Ivanko, told reporters in Pristina.
“Implications for Kosovo – none whatsoever, because this is a UN- administrated territory.”