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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Time to launch ideas about new Kosovo-Metohija negotiations

Belgrade, 7 June 2007

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said that it is time to launch new ideas so as to reach an agreement to the Kosovo-Metohija status issue, which he will discuss with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In an interview to daily Vecernje Novosti, Kostunica stressed that Serbia has its essential state and national interests and that Kosovo today is our largest and fully legitimate interest, as Kosovo is essentially the issue of Serbia’s future.

According to Kostunica, the Albanian side too has its interests and we want to find a fair formula that will satisfy both our interests. The Prime Minister noted that saying just like that that a compromise is impossible to reach and therefore take away territory from Serbia is absolutely unacceptable.

Kostunica stated that the moment of meeting with President Putin is very important bearing in mind that the United States prepared a draft of the new resolution based on Ahtisaari’s plan for Kosovo.

He said that the G-8 summit is taking place and a new meeting between Putin and Bush is scheduled for early July. That shows that the "issue of Kosovo has become an important topic that concerns respect for the most important principles on which the entire international order rests."

Kostunica thinks that Serbia's power lies in its clearly defined principled policy that it is impossible to take away 15% of its territory from a sovereign state which is a UN member because that would be a violation of the UN Charter and of the principles of international order.

Russia and President Putin offered strong support to Serbia which is of great importance for us. That support is based on the common principled policy that international law must be respected, as well as the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, the Serbian Prime Minister said.

Kostunica will inform the Russian President that Serbia launched an initiative for renewing the negotiating process because it is more than obvious that UN Envoy Martti Ahtisaari did not manage to help find a solution that would, first of all, be in line with the UN Charter.

The basic idea of Ahtisaari's plan is to take away 15% of Serbia's territory, regardless of whether it agrees with that or not. This dangerous idea which endangers all values on which Europe is based simply has to be completely rejected and forgotten, Kostunica underlined.

Asked whether he expects Russia and its president to continue defending the principled position on Kosovo-Metohija supported so far, Kostunica said that Russia has shown that it supports the principled policy of Serbia to the extent to which Serbia defends it itself.

For Serbia, Kosovo has become the same as the issue of law, justice and truth, which we as people will never give up.

Kostunica outlined that economic cooperation between the two countries will be the second important issue he will discuss with the Russian President.

The Serbian Prime Minister said that the Serbian government will do its level best to attract as much Russian investment as possible into the fields of energy, banking, metallurgy, infrastructure and other fields. He added that it is also very important to join the Serbian and Russian business communities which will find interests on their own for joint investments as soon as possible.