EU will not back Kosovo unilateral independence

EU will not back Kosovo unilateral independence
EUobserver.com - June 22, 2007 Friday 9:28 AM GMT

By: Helena Spongenberg

EU foreign ministers have reiterated support for a UN security council resolution on the independence of Kosovo, saying it should make a decision as soon as possible. But the bloc will not back unilateral independence by Kosovo Albanians.

The 27 foreign ministers met on the sidelines of the EU leader's summit in Brussels on Thursday night (21 June) to continue talks on the situation in Kosovo, which could face severe delays in its independence bid.

"The base line is still the same," said Danish foreign affairs minister Per Stig Moller. "We support the [UN] security council coming with a resolution and that it makes a decision as soon as possible," he told journalists after the meeting.

The EU insists such a formal resolution is the only way of ending the status quo on the territory, despite the fact that Washington has hinted it would back a move by Kosovo to unilaterally declare independence if Russia blocks a final UN resolution.

"There cannot be any other way for status solution different from the UN security council resolution," the EU's special envoy for Kosovo Stephan Lehne said, according to Balkan news agency DTT-NET.

He added it "would be a huge step backwards" if Kosovo Albanian leaders were to take the issue into their own hands.

Unilateral moves would not help remove the remaining obstacles but would create new ones, Mr Lehne warned after meeting the president of Kosovo, Fatmir Sejdiu, on Thursday.

"If we don't have a UN resolution that the EU states can cluster around, we may have a repeat of the situation with [the invasion of] Iraq, when some countries went one way and some the other way," European Commission official Lars Erik Forsberg warned, AP reports.

The EU and the US are backing a security council resolution which they hope would lead to Kosovo's quick separation from Serbia. But Serbia rejects the plan, and Russia - which has a veto in the security council - says it will continue its opposition unless Belgrade approves the deal.

On Wednesday, Russia rejected a revised UN resolution that would delay internationally supervised independence for Kosovo for four months, to give the province's majority ethnic Albanians and minority Serbs more time to resolve its future status.

Kosovo has been run by the UN since 1999 after NATO air bombings stopped a crackdown by Serb forces on independence-seeking ethnic Albanian rebels, who make up over 90 percent of the 2 million-strong population.

The UN resolution would empower the EU to take over administrative and police supervision of the independent region from the UN.