PRISTINA, Serbia (AFP) — Kosovo's leaders said Monday they would start immediate talks on independence from Serbia and EU nations backed their cause as a UN deadline for a negotiated settlement passed.
"From today, Kosovo is starting intense consultations with its international partners with the aim of coordinating steps for declaring independence, and the official demands for recognising independence," said Skender Hyseni of the Kosovo Albanian negotiating team.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned of a "chain reaction" from any independence move but European Union foreign ministers said they were close to reaching a united stance on recognising independence.
The United Nations had set a December 10 deadline for talks between Kosovo and Serbia which the EU, Russia and the United States tried to mediate.
The spokesman for the Kosovo Albanian negotiating team said not date had yet been chosen for an independence proclamation.
"There is no fixed deadline. Kosovo is certainly not going to wait too long because it has been waiting for eight years to clarify its status," he added.
Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO bombing ended a deadly Serbian crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanian guerrillas and their civilian supporters.
It formally remains a part of Serbia, which considers the province the cradle of its history, culture and Christian Orthodox religion.
Serbian President Boris Tadic said Monday his country would seek legal opinions on the issue of Kosovo's independence from the International Court of Justice, the UN's principal judicial body for international disputes.
"This would be an important argument in a debate" to be led at the UN Security Council on December 19, he told Serbian state television RTS.
Earlier in Pristina, several thousand ethnic Albanian youths took to the streets to press their leaders to follow through with promises for statehood.
The demonstrators waved Albanian, NATO and US flags, and held up placards bearing demands such as "Declare (independence)!" as they marched along the streets of the provincial capital.
Major European powers Britain, France, Germany and Italy are ready to recognise any independence move, along with the United States, and on Monday they said they had moved closer to reaching a united stance in the EU.
"I think there was a really strong sense of unity around the table today, a determination that Europe would provide leadership on this issue," said an upbeat British Foreign Secretary David Miliband after talks in Brussels.
At least four states -- Cyprus, Greece, Slovakia and Spain -- are hesitant to recognise a unilateral declaration of independence, in part because of the precedent it might set for other separatist regions.
But only Cyprus refused outright, with a spokesman saying the government would do so even if "almost the entire European Union agreed towards that direction and reacted against our position."
Serbia and the European Union last month initialled a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, which is considered the first step on the path to eventual EU membership.
But Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic stressed: "There will be no trade of Kosovo for Europe, nor will Serbia ever accept it, and nobody's offering it."
Russia's foreign minister Lavrov warned countries planning to recognise Kosovo's independence that they should "think very carefully about the consequences."
"In that case those countries would be violating international law... This will cause a chain reaction in the Balkans and other areas of the world," Lavrov told journalists during a two-day visit to Cyprus.
In Washington, the US State Department reiterated its stand that in the absence of a deal, "the best way forward" was to implement a plan put forward by UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari, despite Serbian and Russian objections.
That includes "his recommendation of supervised independence for Kosovo and package of measures to protect Kosovo's minorities," spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said in a statement.
To help in the transition to independence, the EU is ready to deploy an 1,800-strong police and civilian mission to fill any vacuum that might be left when UN peacekeepers depart, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said.
However the UN must endorse the operation before it can be sent.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
