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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

US proposed resolution on Kosovo directly breaches UN Charter, fundamental principles of international law

Belgrade, 24 May 2007

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica stated today that the US proposed resolution for Kosovo-Metohija directly breaches the UN Charter and fundamental principles of international law and added that Serbia will instantaneously nullify any document attempting to create another state on its territory.

Author: Fonet

In a statement to the FoNet news agency, Kostunica said that by protecting the UN Charter, the Security Council must reject any such proposal through which 15% of Serbia’s territory is taken away.

He believes that Russia, a permanent Security Council member, has a principled stance equal to that of Serbia according to which a UN member country cannot have its internationally recognised borders re-cut against its will.

When states take up a principled stance it is clear that they cannot be changed since that would mean abandoning the principles, emphasised Kostunica.

He said that this situation is all about the most general principles of international order, principles of the respect of inviolability of borders and respect of sovereignty and territorial integrity of existing states.

The Prime Minister announced that in the upcoming period, Serbia will strongly insist that the EU and all European institutions strictly adhere to the respect of Serbia’s territorial integrity, a rule which is applied to all other European states.

While undergoing its EU integration process, Serbia is fulfilling all European standards and with full justification demands that the EU shows respect towards Serbia in its fulfilment of not only the European, but also the universal standard, which is the respect of a country’s territorial unity, said Kostunica.

He stressed that within its regional cooperation Serbia will also insist that all states respect its internationally recognised borders since Serbia without exception respects all state borders in the region.

This is an indispensable prerequisite for any form of cooperation in order to ensure peace, stability and prosperity of the entire region.

Since the Security Council will not allow that a portion of Serbia’s territory be seized away from it, as it would mean the breach of the UN Charter and the fall of the entire international order, it is of particular importance to draw attention to the perilousness of the very notion to declare unilateral independence of a province contravening UN Resolution 1244, said Kostunica.

Kostunica warned that the Serbian government would “immediately annul” any document according to which another state might be created on the territory of Serbia, and for the Serbian government, as well as all other state institutions, Kosovo-Metohija will be an integral and unalienable part of Serbia.

Every Serbian citizen in the province must know very well that unilateral independence simply does not exist and means nothing to Serbia, said the Prime Minister.

He recalled that so far there have been several such attempts by ethnic Albanian separatists which have no meaning for the state of Serbia.

Even if we assume, for example, that just yesterday Albanian separatists declared unilateral independence, our answer is that each of our citizens in Kosovo-Metohija must absolutely reject and ignore such illegal and invalid acts and know that the province is an integral and unalienable part of Serbia and that they are Serbian citizens with full rights, stressed Kostunica, adding that their government, their parliament and their state institutions, according to the Serbian Constitution, are situated in Belgrade.

He explained that this obliges state institutions to provide them with employment, health care, education and all other facilities.

The Ministry for Kosovo-Metohija was formed due to the Serbian government’s heightened concern for the province, said Kostunica. He further said that the Ministry, in cooperation with all other ministries, will make major and constant efforts so that investment and employment are increased in Kosovo-Metohija and the standard of living is made much better than at present.