Serbia threatens to impose economic and travel blockade on Kosovo

PanARMENIAN.Net - Serbia threatened to impose an economic and travel blockade on Kosovo if the breakaway province declares independence, as a last-ditch attempt to negotiate a settlement deadlocked and appeared doomed to fail.



International mediators' failure to forge a compromise before a December 10 UN deadline raised the likelihood that an increasingly impatient Kosovo will declare statehood sometime early in 2008, throwing the Balkans into fresh turmoil - and possibly violence.



Top officials from the rival sides both conceded they remain far apart. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority demands full independence, while Serbia insists the southern province remain part of its territory.



"Hopefully, in a time not too long from now, we will be able to take our decision," Kosovo's president, Fatmir Sejdiu, told reporters in the Austrian spa town of Baden, where the closed-door talks at a castle hotel wrap up Wednesday.



Sejdiu shrugged off Serbia's fierce opposition to statehood for Kosovo, saying the province "will not be held hostage" to those who object.



As the talks mediated by the U.S., European Union and Russia hit what looked like an insurmountable stalemate, there were ominous statements from the Serbian side suggesting ugly and possibly bloody confrontations could await Kosovo if it declares independence unilaterally as many expect.



Serbia will impose a "complete economic and travel blockade" of Kosovo, including cutting off electricity supplies to the province and banning ethnic Albanians and their goods from crossing the borders, a high-ranking Serbian official said on Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue.



In Baden, Serbia's minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, said Serbia would respond "like any country in Europe would react if its borders would be in danger."



And Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said: "Whoever decides to make such a unilateral act will have to bear the consequences for whatever will follow."



Serbian President Boris Tadic insisted there was room to compromise and offered Kosovo self-governance, which the Albanian side rejected.



"The way these negotiations started, they must end, and that is in the U.N. Security Council," said Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. He denounced any unilateral declaration of independence as "completely unacceptable" and a violation of international law.



Although Kosovo formally remains part of Serbia, the southern province has been run by the UN and NATO since 1999, when the Western military alliance launched an air war that ended former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.



Critics, including Russia - an ally of Serbia that insists the U.N. Security Council have the final say on Kosovo's future - contend a unilateral declaration of independence would plunge the Balkans back into turmoil and set a dangerous precedent for other separatist movements worldwide.



Kostunica said his government would swiftly pronounce Kosovo's statehood "null and void, illegal, which it is." Asked about specific punitive measures under consideration, he said only: "If it happens, you'll see."



Hashim Thaci, a former rebel leader who is Kosovo's incoming new prime minister, played down the chances of renewed violence.



"No more war, no more killing, no more violence in the region - that is our commitment," he said.



Sejdiu repeated Kosovo's pledge to respect and protect the rights of the province's beleaguered 100,000 minority Serbs, most of whom live in isolated enclaves and in constant fear of reprisal attacks by Albanians.



Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, Russia's representative to the mediating "troika," said Moscow would insist that talks continue after December 10. But officials questioned why.



"The positions of both sides have remained the same," Sejdiu noted.



The closed-door talks in Baden close out four months of bitter meetings between the rival sides since the collapse last summer of a blueprint for eventual independence drawn up by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari.



Ahtisaari's plan called for internationally supervised statehood for Kosovo. But Moscow threatened to veto the proposal at the Security Council, prompting the EU, U.S. and Russia to mount another attempt at a negotiated settlement, the AP reports.