Kosovo Serbs crave Russian citizenship

Vremya Novostei

Kosovo Serbs crave Russian citizenship

A new turn is imminent in the situation around Kosovo after Thursday's meeting at the UN General Assembly in New York, which clearly showed that Serbia's government is not going to risk a conflict with the West over the territory that unilaterally declared independence in February 2008.

Serbia hopes this policy will help promote its EU bid. However, Kosovo Serbs have accused officials in Belgrade including President Boris Tadic of trying to sacrifice their interests for relations with the West, and threatened to seek out Russia for support.

The Kosovo resolution put up for a vote of the UN General Assembly on Thursday is the result of long and difficult negotiations. Serbia's initial draft included a clause ruling out Kosovo's independence and calling for new negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo. Brussels demanded that Serbia withdraw its draft under threat of freezing the country's EU accession process. Serbia refused to withdraw the resolution, although agreed to soften the requirements.

As a result, the resolution became more relaxed and more open to compromise but at the same time, more vague. A reassessment of Kosovo's independence was entirely removed from the document.

"The Serbian government is aware that the West, that is, the United States and the European Union, is unlikely to make significant concessions on Kosovo or review its decision on the region's independence," Konstantin Nikiforov, director of the Institute of Slavic Studies in Russia, said. In his words, it was clear ten years go that the Western powers were determined to follow through on independence for Kosovo Albanians. Therefore, Serbia and the EU are limited to technicalities at their negotiations, such as international guarantees of certain autonomy for the areas in Kosovo where ethnic Serbs live.

The region's Albanian authorities are not interested in building relations with Serbia either, Nikiforov adds. The 100,000 Serbs living in densely packed communities in the northern areas of Kosovo populated by 2,000,000 are the least fortunate in this situation. They refuse to recognize the new government's jurisdiction and accuse Serbia of lack of support.

President of the Serb National Council of Northern Kosovo Milan Ivanovic said on Wednesday that the recent moves by Boris Tadic are forcing the Kosovo Serbs to turn to Russia. He warned that they will apply for Russian citizenship for all Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija if the EU-Serbian agreements violate the Kosovo Serbs' rights and are implemented without Russia's approval.

According to Ivanovic, Russia knows how to protect its citizens wherever they live, referring to the August 2008 conflict in the Caucasus that led to the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by Moscow.

http://en.rian.ru/papers/20100910/160544886.html