Russia, Serbia urge more time for Kosovo talks
Serbia and Russia are pressing for more time to settle the future of Kosovo and head off a declaration of independence at the start of crunch talks on Monday that offered no hope of compromise.
Counting on Western support, Kosovo Albanians say they will declare independence from Serbia after a deadline for negotiations to end expires on December 10.
Russia, Serbia`s main backer, conceded there was no chance of a breakthrough at the two-day talks in the Austrian spa town of Baden. But its envoy said Moscow would "insist" the talks continue after the December deadline, which the West says is final.
"We will insist on the continuation of the status process through dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina," envoy Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko told the Belgrade daily Blic.
Serbia, too, looked beyond the Baden meeting and its likely failure. Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica told the mediators if compromise proved elusive, "we would have a duty to agree to resume the talks and establish a new negotiating process."
"No one should have any doubt that we will annul any unilateral act, and treat unilateral independence as a null, void and non-binding phenomenon," he said.
Kostunica repeated an offer of autonomy, and told reporters: "Serbia will not let an inch of its territory be taken away."
The talks, due to end on Wednesday morning, are the 6th round of a final search for a deal launched at the end of August after Russia`s threat to veto a Western-backed plan granting Kosovo independence.
Led by American, Russian and EU envoys, they follow 13 months of U.N.-led talks that ended in deadlock in March.
All sides are braced for a declaration of independence by the 90-percent Albanian majority in the next three months.
Diplomats say recognition should follow quickly from the major Western powers who in 1999 unleashed NATO bombers to end a wave of ethnic cleansing by Serb forces trying to crush a guerrilla insurgency. Kosovo has been U.N.-administered since.
OBSTRUCTION
"This is the last meeting, after two years of talks," said ex-rebel fighter Hashim Thaci, Kosovo`s likely next prime minister after winning last weekend`s parliamentary election.
"We can negotiate for 100 years more with Serbia but for the independence of Kosovo we can have no compromise," he told Reuters at the 13th century Schloss Weikersdorf hotel.
Asked if he saw any justification for an extension as suggested by Russia`s Botsan-Kharchenko, EU envoy Wolfgang Ischinger said: "My answer is `No`."
"It`s not for the troika, and not for members of the troika, to speculate about what might happen after the 10th," he said.
"Our mandate ends and this opportunity which the international community has offered through the troika ends on the 10th," when the mediators report back to the United Nations.
Serbia has instructed government ministers to draw up an `Action Plan` in the event of a unilateral declaration - "the blackest scenario," said deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic.
Analysts predict roadblocks, obstruction of trade and electricity supplies and possibly the establishment of Serbian-controlled areas in Kosovo, similar to those set up in Bosnia and Croatia 16 years ago.
"We are very much aware that with a declaration of independence ... we are going to be faced with some challenges," outgoing Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku said on Sunday. "We have nowhere to go and we are ready to face all the challenges."
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