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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

While status of Kosovo-Metohija is being decided, Serbia-Montenegro’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must not be violated

Belgrade/New York, 24 October 2005

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said today at a session of the UN Security Council in New York that Serbia-Montenegro expects that the framework and the mandate for talks on the future status of Kosovo-Metohija will be defined by the Security Council in the form of talks on the status of the province within the internationally recognised state union of Serbia and Montenegro. The Council is expected to act in accordance with its own principle of the inviolability of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of democratic states.

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica addresses the United Nations Security Council

Author: Tanjug

The Serbian government’s official website provides the Prime Minister’s statement in full.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished Members of the Security Council,

I would like to begin by expressing great respect for this august body of the world organisation. I am addressing you today, as representatives of the UN Security Council Member States, in the firm belief that you constitute the most credible and reliable guarantor of the foundations of not only the United Nations, but of the entire world order. You know better than anyone else that the inviolability of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states is one of these fundamental principles.

My country, Serbia and Montenegro, is a loyal and active member of the United Nations. Both in word and action, it has repeatedly proved its commitment to the principles that govern world peace and stability today. In the same spirit of trust, we expect that the Security Council will exercise its authority and, in the case of Serbia and Montenegro and its province Kosovo and Metohija, safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of my country.

I believe that we all share the conviction that the dismemberment of a democratic state and the change of its internationally recognised borders against its will are options not to be contemplated. This would not only be an unprecedented case in international law and the practice of the United Nations, but also a dangerous precedent with grave long-term consequences for the international order in general. I would like you to consider that the responsibility facing the Security Council today is not related solely to the fate of a single Balkan state. What is at stake here is a set of core principles that the United Nations is based upon, and should act upon, in its mission of safeguarding the world peace.

It is very important for me, Mr. President, to emphasise to the Security Council that Serbia and Montenegro is fully prepared to assume its share of responsibility in the process of resolving the Kosovo and Metohija issue, in accordance with the fundamental principles of international law and the democratic values of the contemporary world. Within this general framework, we are committed to a compromise solution and willing to ensure substantial autonomy for Kosovo and Metohija as a part of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. The future of my country, of the region and, to a certain extent, of Europe itself will depend on a just and viable solution to the Kosovo issue. We, thus, come before this forum with respect and trust, expecting it to make a vital contribution in the spirit of its previous documents, and in particular the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 of June 10, 1999. This Resolution clearly reaffirms the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia and Montenegro, and we are confident that the future decisions of the Security Council will not depart from this fundamental principle of the United Nations.

Mr. President, the UN Security Council today faces a daunting task. It has to decide whether to move to the next stage in resolving the Kosovo and Metohija issue, even though the precisely defined tasks of the previous stage remain uncompleted. At the previous sessions of the Security Council on Kosovo and Metohija, we have offered several fully documented assessments of the difficult situation in the province, with a particular emphasis on the hopeless position of Serbs and other non-Albanians. We have repeatedly provided convincing information not only on the absence of multi-ethnicity in Kosovo and Metohija, but also on grave violations of the fundamental rights and freedoms, from the right to life itself to freedom from fear.

Ambassador Kai Eide’s report, which is before the Security Council today, has two main aims: to provide a comprehensive assessment of the situation in Kosovo and, on the basis of that assessment, to determine whether talks on the future status of the province should be initiated. In particular, Ambassador Eide’s task was to evaluate progress in the implementation of standards that constitute the foundation of a democratic, multiethnic and economically viable society.

In his comprehensive review, Ambassador Eide presents many essentially important facts, particularly with regard to the difficult position of the Serbian and other non-Albanian communities in Kosovo and Metohija. I quote: “Little has been achieved to create a foundation for a multiethnic society,” so that the situation in this respect is “grim”. The minority communities – and especially the Kosovo Serbs – suffer from more than a perceived insecurity”. In any case, according to Ambassador Eide, “it is difficult to expect that people from minority communities should take risks in order to verify whether freedom of movement and security” are or are not realities. “At present, property rights are neither respected nor ensured,” he says, and these include many cases of illegal seizure of Serbian state property through the privatisation process that are not specifically mentioned in his report. “Illegal construction and occupation of homes…is a widespread phenomenon”. Where minority communities are concerned, the Eide report states, “harassment, looting, stealing of cattle, and other similar incidents occur very frequently.” “This comes in addition to widespread illegal occupancy of property, especially agricultural land, which makes it impossible to access such property and to use it or cultivate it without a security risk”.

The following sentences in the Eide report are particularly significant, Mr. President: “Lack of security and respect for property rights as well as uncertainty about the future, contribute heavily to the fact that the overall return process has virtually come to a halt. There is a strong feeling that those who commit crimes enjoy impunity and that the possibility for establishing viable livelihoods is very limited. The great majority of the people who left Kosovo after June 1999 have not come back”. These statements gain particular importance in the light of precise data not offered in the report. Today, more than 60 per cent of Kosovo Serbs are internally displaced persons (IDPs) in central Serbia. Apart from Northern Mitrovica, there are no more Serbs in Pristina, Prizren, Pec, Gnjilane, Urosevac, and other towns in the province. The Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija are now reduced to a dwindling rural population, living in fear and often deprived of their most basic rights. The best illustration of the precarious legal position of the Serb community in Kosovo and Metohija is the fact that 17,000 court cases involving individual property claims by local Serbs have been positively resolved, but none of these decisions have been implemented. Since June 1999, Orthodox Christianity has been exposed to deliberate and brutal persecution. Some 150 Orthodox churches and monasteries have been destroyed or irreparably damaged, Orthodox cemeteries throughout the province have been desecrated and in many cases destroyed, Orthodox Christians have been denied the basic right to profess and practice their faith.

The Eide report attributes these massive violations of human and minority rights not only to ethnically motivated violence against minorities, but also to the fragility and malfunctioning of institutions, particularly the police and judiciary. This holds both of the provisional institutions at the central level (where, as the report emphasises, “the Kosovo Serbs fear that they will become a decoration… with little ability to yield tangible results”), and of the institutions of local self-government, which – with regard to the protection of the Serb and other non-Albanian communities – have not been properly defined yet, let alone implemented.

In spite of all these facts, Ambassador Eide recommends that we should move into the next stage of the process, the future status talks. He also adds that there “will not be any good moment for addressing Kosovo’s future status,” and insists that the implementation of standards should continue throughout the future status talks. Nevertheless, the critical question remains: whether the future status talks can succeed if the crucial standards with regard to human rights and basic freedoms in Kosovo and Metohija are neither fulfilled, nor anywhere near fulfilment in the foreseeable future. Today I believe we have to answer this question as follows. It is only through a serious, completely realistic assessment of the situation in Kosovo and Metohija, to which Ambassador Eide’s report is a significant contribution, that we can attain what I want to see as a common aim of all those involved in the Kosovo issue – a democratic and multiethnic Kosovo and Metohija, where respect for rights will replace fear and violence.

Mr. President, I wish to underline here that in the forthcoming talks Serbia and Montenegro will be fully guided by the general principles and norms of international law and universally accepted democratic values. Let me also express, on behalf of my country, the firm belief that the Security Council will act upon the principle of sovereignty and territorial integrity of democratic states, and so define the framework and mandate of future status talks as talks on the future status of Kosovo and Metohija as a province within the internationally recognised state of Serbia and Montenegro. I want to point out, Mr. President, that all the principles for resolving the Kosovo and Metohija issue, which I am relying on here, are precisely the principles of the United Nations, which the Security Council is responsible for implementing.

Author: www.un.org

Our first principle, I repeat, is that any solution must respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia and Montenegro as an internationally recognised state, a member of the United Nations and other international organisations. This principle is supported by the basic sources of international law including, inter alia, the United Nations Charter and the Helsinki Final Act, while in the particular case at hand it is confirmed by the UN Security Council Resolution 1244, where the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia and Montenegro, is recognised expressis verbis. Apart from the basic sources of international law, the borders and territorial integrity of the states created after the break-up of former Yugoslavia are additionally guaranteed by specific international documents and agreements such as the Opinions of the Arbitration Commission of the Conference on Yugoslavia (in particular, Opinion No. 3 of January 11, 1992) and the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina of November 21, 1995 (the Dayton-Paris agreement).

In addition to being supported by the basic sources and rules of international law, this principle is confirmed by all Security Council resolutions covering the Kosovo crisis prior to Resolution 1244, namely Resolutions Nos. 1160 (1998), 1199 (1998), 1203 (1998) and 1239 (1999). They all recognise expressis verbis the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia and Montenegro. Let me also say that I see the Security Council, itself legally bound by the United Nations Charter, as the right place to state unambiguously that in this instance we are not discussing non-binding obligations of states but rather most stringent norms of international law, the jus cogens norms, the respect for which is a sine qua non condition for the international community to function as a whole.

Second, the future status talks should take into account the fact that Serbia and Montenegro is a democratic state. We find it inconceivable, as I am sure do the members of this august body, that solutions should be imposed against its will on any democracy, least of all solutions that threaten its internationally recognised borders. Any attempt at imposing such a solution through de facto legalisation of a partition of Serbia, i.e. through forcible secession of a part of its territory, would be tantamount not only to legal violence against a democratic state, but against international law itself.

Third, our political efforts will be directed to defining a specific and viable form of substantial autonomy for Kosovo and Metohija, whereby the legitimate interests of Kosovo Albanians will be fully acknowledged. Allow me to remind you that substantial autonomy for the province was proposed as a political solution for the Kosovo crisis by the Security Council Resolution 1160 (1998), and reaffirmed by the Conclusions of G8 Foreign Ministers of May 6, 1999 and the June 1999 Agreement that brought an end to the hostilities. I believe that the members of this august body will agree with me when I say that a peaceful negotiated solution to Kosovo and Metohija’s future status within the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro will be a decisive step towards European integration, not only for my country, but for the region as a whole. A negotiated solution implies a compromise that will make it impossible for Serbs and Albanians alike to attain all their goals and aspirations. On the other hand, it is only compromise that can further our integration into the European economic, social and cultural space and, ultimately, the European Union itself.

These fundamental commitments, Mr. President, constitute a framework within which our country, with good intentions and faith in the future, is embarking upon the process of defining the future status of Kosovo and Metohija.

The future status process, Mr. President, will have the best likelihood of success if, in its crucial and most sensitive part, it takes the form of direct talks between representatives of the two sides. I am certain that we can all agree that future status talks should aim at a negotiated solution to be reached by the parties, with adherence to the essential principles and norms of international law. If this is genuinely our goal, our talks must be direct. If this cannot be achieved immediately, at the very beginning, it is clear that the Special Envoy must do his best to make it possible. It is our firm belief that the only way to attain a negotiated solution is through direct talks, mediated by the Special Envoy and his associates.

Finally, I would like to say that the general situation in Serbia and Montenegro, as well as in Kosovo and Metohija, differs greatly from that of June 1999. A democratic government has been established in Serbia, Serbia and Montenegro has resolved its status within the United Nations and irrevocably joined the European integration process. This has added a democratic dimension to the internationally recognised sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia and Montenegro, which were already clearly reaffirmed in June 1999. Genuine respect for human and minority rights, good neighbourly relations, and peace in the region and the world have become the principal guidelines of my country’s domestic and foreign policy. Serbia and Montenegro is increasingly affirming itself as a bulwark of basic democratic values, both within its territory and in the region.

Allow me, Mr. President, to close this speech by stating that my country is committed to making every effort to reach a negotiated solution based on compromise, together with the Security Council and in a way compatible with the norms of international law. I hope that the other party to the dispute will be ready to assume its share of responsibility. I am convinced that the international community, embodied in the United Nations, will not succumb to threats of violence and permit a dismemberment of a democratic state and the undermining of the most basic principles of the international order. I am convinced and no one can understand this better than you, that no democratic and free state could accept this under any circumstances. For, ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly what we are discussing today.

Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, knowing that we share common principles underlying both the international legal order and the UN itself, I express full confidence in the Security Council and its just treatment of the Kosovo and Metohija issue. I expect from you today nothing less than elementary justice, and nothing more than agreement that my country is entitled to the protection of the same universal principles that apply to each one of your countries, as well as to all states that belong to the world family of democratic nations.

In the belief that the Security Council will consider in full earnest the arguments I have presented, I would like to thank you, Mr. President, for the opportunity to address this important session.

Thank you, Mr. President.