Keepin touch

Whether you have a question, comment, suggestion or any problem in the purview of the government, send us your message and we will try to respond as soon as possible. If your problem is not in our purview, we will forward your message to the relevant institution.

The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

No compensation in exchange for Kosovo independence is possible

Belgrade, 21 May 2007

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said tonight that Serbia will not trade for Kosovo-Metohija and that any kind of compensation offered in exchange for the province’s independence is not possible.

File photo of Vojislav Kostunica

Author: RTS

Kostunica said in an interview with RTS that there will be no trading or compensation for Kosovo-Metohija, noting that EU membership cannot compensate for the loss of the province. The Prime Minister pointed out that no one in Europe has said nor dared to say that.

Commenting on the draft resolution on Kosovo that the United States and some European countries are preparing supporting the plan of UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari, Kostunica said that this is a legally ungrounded document which is contradictory.

According to him, everything from Ahtisaari’s plan and contained in the US-European resolution is an attempt to use institutional the mechanism from Ahtisaari’s plan without mentioning the word independence.

Monitored autonomy for Kosovo-Metohija, proposed by authorities in Belgrade, allows Pristina to create the province’s future separately from Belgrade but in coordination with Belgrade authorities, the Prime Minister stressed.

Ahtisaari speaks of monitored independence, and I speak of monitored autonomy; the advantage of the latter solution is that it can be improved or abandoned, Kostunica said and added that independence cannot be mended and would be a dangerous precedent for many other countries.

Speaking on the three-month negotiations in trying to form the government, he said that even the talks were conditioned by the situation in which Serbia was in, with the unsolved status of Kosovo and noted that long-lasting negotiations on the future government are common in other countries as well.

Kostunica said that he believes that the newly formed government of Serbia will be stable and that parties in the government will find ways to establish good cooperation, noting that he feels encouraged after the first two government sessions.

Parties that have differing political programmes placed the state interest as priority, Kostunica said noting that the experience from his previous mandate tells him that cooperation of parties with different programmes is possible.

He recalled that there was always a consensus in the previous government regardless of all programme differences among parties.

The five principles presented in the keynote address in Serbian parliament simply oblige the government to work in that way, Kostunica stressed and highlighted that feudalisation, i.e., monopoly of certain parties over some of public administration sectors will not be possible.

Speaking on the problem of concluding the cooperation with the Hague tribunal, Kostunica said that ending cooperation means that there is no need for him to promise that anyone will be arrested.

It is necessary to locate the remaining indictees, including Ratko Mladic, arrest them and transfer them to the court at The Hague, the Serbian Prime Minister said.