Kosovo fears prompt US and UK to back deeper Serbia ties

Kosovo fears prompt US and UK to back deeper Serbia ties

By Daniel Dombey in Rigaand Neil MacDonald in Sarajevo

Published: November 30 2006 02:00 | Last updated: November 30 2006 02:00

The
US, the UK and the Netherlands yesterday staged a dramatic U-turn on
Serbia, endorsing plans for deeper Nato ties with Belgrade amid fears
that a coming dispute over Kosovo could spin out of control.

Washington,
London and The Hague had previously blocked calls for Belgrade to join
Nato's Partnership for Peace - a programme that has in the past brought
some countries closer to membership. They insisted that Serbia first
needed to make progress on hunting down Ratko Mladic, the indicted war
criminal widely blamed for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which
thousands of Bosnian Muslims died.

But
at a Nato summit in Riga, US and UK diplomats accepted the arguments
made by most other Nato member states that Belgrade needed a positive
signal if it was not to be estranged from the west.

Diplomats
said that Nato made its move to bolster pro-western parties in Serbia's
January elections. They added that it could also soften the blow
Belgrade is set to receive next year when many countries are expected
to recognise the indepen-dence of Kosovo, the break-away province that
was at the heart of Nato's 1999 war with Serbia.

"I have long
been of the opinion that this was the right way to go," said Jaap de
Hoop Scheffer, Nato secretary-general, referring to the decision to
give Serbia partnership. Tacitly acknowledging the dispute within Nato,
he added: "It was not so easy."

The neighbouring countries of
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro were also welcomed into the Nato
partnership for peace, while Croatia was given a strong signal that it
would be admitted in 2008.

Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor at
The Hague tribunal, said the decisionappeared to reward Serbia for
non-cooperation in the hunt for Mr Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, the
former Bosnian Serb leader. "We were not consulted," spokesman Anton
Nikiforov, said.

Vojislav Kostunica, Serbia's nationalist-leaning
prime minister, claimed that closer association with Nato, which leads
an international peacekeeping force in Kosovo, would help Serbia hold
on to at least nominal sovereignty over the province.

"The
entrance of Serbia into the partnership for peace is a very important
and encouraging fact at a moment when we are struggling to keep the
integrity of Serbia," Mr Kostunica said, according to the official
Tanjug news agency. His government says it would accept the maximum
possible autonomy for Kosovo, but not independence with a seat in the
UN.

The European Union has separately halted negotiations on an
association agreement with Serbia - widely considered a waystation to
EU membership - because of Belgrade's failure to do more on handing
over Mr Mladic to the inter-national criminal tribunal in The Hague.

Nato
said it expected Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia to co-operate with
prosecutors and would monitor closely to ensure this happens.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ad054048-8017-11db-a3be-0000779e2340.html

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