LISBON (AFP) — Serbian President Boris Tadic called on Kosovo's Serbs on Wednesday to boycott November legislative elections in their province as tensions ratcheted up over the future status of the territory.
Tadic, speaking to reporters during a visit to Lisbon, said "Serbia is appealing to postpone this election because of the ongoing negotiations" between the European Union, Russia and the United States on Kosovo.
"We cannot support the participation of Serbians in the election" on November 17, which would be "counterproductive," he said.
The elections, Tadic added, were "not achieving standards in protecting Serbians and Serbian rights."
Kosovo, a Serbian province under UN administration since the war of 1999, is populated 90 percent by ethnic Albanians who overwhelmingly want independence and nearly 10 percent ethnic Serbs who want the territory to remain part of Serbia.
The European Union and the United States are sympathetic to a UN plan calling for "supervised independence" that would formalise Kosovo's breakaway status, but Belgrade -- backed by historic ally Russia -- is staunchly opposing that.
Talks are expected to conclude on December 10, but Russia, a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council, has refused to budge.
Against the backdrop of the haggling between EU and US representatives on one side and Russians on the other, the UN chief for Kosovo, Joachim Rucker, last month called for the November elections to select a new 120-seat provincial parliament, which would in turn select a president and prime minister.
Municipal elections are scheduled for the same date. Tadic said Serbia's position on those polls would be made known "maybe this evening (Wednesday) or tomorrow (Thursday)."
If a Serbian voter boycott goes ahead, it would be the second time the minority in Kosovo would be snubbing elections. In October 2004, less than one percent of some 150,000 eligible Serb voters -- including more than 100,000 refugees now living outside of Kosovo -- cast their ballots.
Many observers believe there is a real possibility of Kosovo's Albanians unilaterally declaring independence.
That would put European countries and the United States in the position of having to decide whether to recognise such a move -- and thus risking further confrontation with a Russia that is already flexing its muscles against the West.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, after talks with European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering in Brussels on Wednesday, said a unilateral declaration of independence could threaten the stability in the region.
"The international community and the EU should make a clear warning that a unilateral declaration of independence is not something only in violation of the UN charter but also a threat to the peace and stability of the region," he said.
The United States has signalled it would accept Kosovo's independence.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Kurt Volker told AFP on Friday: "We would recognise Kosovo independence as, we assume, a number of others would as well because that is the only stable way forward in the Balkans."
Solana implicitly criticised the US stance.
"We have an agreement between the members of the European Union, the United States the Russian Federation and the parties involved in this period (of talks) ... to try not to make statements that jeopardise the objectives of the negotiations," he said.
The EU-US-Russia troika is due to meet with Serbian and Kosovo representatives, separately, in London on September 18-19 before all parties get together for the first time for talks in New York on September 28.
A senior Russian foreign ministry official, however, said late Wednesday that December 10 -- when UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is due to present his report on Kosovo to the Security Council -- "is not some sort of a strategic date or some limit."
The head of the ministry's international organisations department, Alexander Konuzin, was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti that "more time" should be given to negotiations if they go up to that date without consensus.
Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
