The dialog between Belgrade and Pristina will be resumed before the meeting of the Council of Ministers planned for 27th and 28th of February, only if two positions on the regional representation of Kosovo are brought closer, chief of Belgrade’s negotiating team Borislav Stefanovic said to Novi Magazin.
However, it is very likely that Stefanovic and Edita Tahiri will meet in Brussels before the end of the month. The visit of European mediator in the dialogue Robert Cooper to Belgrade and Pristina, as well as the recommendations of the departing International Crisis Group, have accelerated the prospects for resolving the main dispute – the regional representation of Kosovo.
Stefanovic does not want to specify the models offered to Pristina, except that Serbia will insist on the implementation of Resolution 1244.
“It would be foolish to reveal the proposals before the official talks,” says Stefanovic.
The move in the regional representation was made by the Internation Crisis Group which recommends a footnote of two syllables next to word Kosovo: “Resolution 1244” and “According to the International Court of Justice”, but apparently there are three grammatical variants – with a comma, the hyphen and semicolon separation.
According to the international sources in Kosovo, Pristina is ready for an agreement with Belgrade, but the government of Hashim Thaci fears the public reactions.
Pristina has no formal proposal for this round. Until last week it was ready to accept a footnote saying: “without prejudice in countries’ viewpoints towards the status of Kosovo”, insisting that Resolution 1244 is not mentioned. Diplomats and mediators claim that under the international pressures Thaci’s government has agreed not to declare itself as a republic on regional meetings.
However, this unofficial viewpoint was changed under the public pressure of opposition, especially Albin Kurti and his Self-determination movement, so Taci, Edita Tahiri, and finally earlier this week the President of Kosovo Atifete Jahjaga, publicly said that Kosovo “will never give up on ‘republic’ in the title”.
That’s why the last few days the ambassadors of most prominent EU countries began to speak in public how the word “republic” is not an important detail, and that their own countries have no definitions of their names in international meetings.
On Monday this week, German Ambassador submitted a written declaration to the media stating that Germany is not presented as a Republic, though it is, so Kosovo does not have to be declared either.
“The new campaign of Self-Determination movement related to the name Republic of Kosovo and the claim that the use of any other name would be unconstitutional and also a high treason, is nothing else but a political kindergarten. In the EU, OSCE, UN and other international organizations and institutions German delegation usually sit behind the inscription ‘Germany’, not ‘Federal Republic of Germany’.
This applies to the ‘French Republic’ or ‘the Kingdom of the Netherlands’, as well as almost all other countries. There is no reason why it would be different in case of Kosovo,” says German Ambassador in Pristina Ernst Reichel.
Models:
· The Republic of Kosovo
· Kosovo
· Kosovo – Resolution 1244, according to the International Court of Justice
· Kosovo – Resolution 1244 – according to the International Court of Justice
· Kosovo – Resolution 1244; according to the International Court of Justice
· Kosovo, UN Resolution 1244
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