Kosovo premier delivers ultimatum to UN Financial Times

Kosovo premier delivers ultimatum to UN
Financial Times - April 19, 2004

LONDON -- Monday – Kosovo’s prime minister said today that Serbia’s southern province will seek to secede in September 2005 if the United Nations has not made substantial progress on the province's future by then.

"If we wait until September 2005 and we see they are buying time, probably we will unilaterally move for a referendum on independence or a declaration of independence," Bajram Rexhepi said in an interview with Britain’s the Financial Times.

Rexhepi said he would prefer to see a gradual transition to self-rule agreed with the UN, but warned that the international community was showing signs that it was unwilling to make progress.

He accused some UN officials in the province of wanting the status quo to continue for another five or ten years

The prime minister’s remarks underline the renewed sense of urgency over Kosovo since last month’s riots which left 19 people dead and more than nine hundred injured.

NATO’s occupying force of almost 20,000 troops failed to stop ethnic Albanian mobs from attacking ethnic Serb enclaves. Thousands of Serbs were forced to flee homes and churches that came under attack.

The violence triggered reprisals against mosques in Serbia proper and has led some observers to question whether negotiations over Kosovo's final status can begin successfully next year.

Serbia's government also has broken the diplomatic silence over Kosovo’s future, publishing a scheme that proposes self-rule for ethnic minority communities in an autonomous Kosovo.