Posted on 06/11/2007 1:22:51 PM PDT by Bokababe
Belgrade 11 June (AKI) - Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica on Monday sharply criticised United States president George W. Bush for supporting independence of Serbia's breakaway Kosovo province, saying he can't give away what does not belong to him. "America has the right to support other states and peoples in accordance with its interests, but not by giving away as a gift something that isn’t its property," Kostunica told journalists in Belgrade."America must find another way of expressing its sympathies and love towards Albanians, instead of handing them Serbian territories," he added.
Kostunica said Serbia would never give up Kosovo and warned that the US has made "enough mistakes for the past and this century by bombing Serbia. A new mistake in the form of Kosovo's independence would be another injustice and display of force which the Serbian people would not forget," he added.
During a visit to Albania on Sunday, Bush said the US supported independence for Kosovo, as demanded by most of its 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority, and urged other countries to do the same. "At some point in time, sooner rather than later, you've got to say enough is enough, Kosovo is independent," he told a news conference in Tirana.
Most western countries support Kosovo's independence, but a plan by the chief United Nations negotiator Martti Ahtisaari has run into trouble in the UN Security Council because Russia has threatened to use its veto power to block the move, unless Serbs agreed to it.
Kosovo has been under UN control since 1999, after NATO bombing pushed Serbian forces out of the province amid reports of gross human rights violations and a mass exodus of ethnic Albanians. Belgrade remains staunchly opposed to independence, but the Kosovar government last week invited Kosovars to come up with designs for new state symbols.
Bush said in Tirana he was "worried about (ethnic Albanians’) expectations not being met" because of Russian opposition. Kostunica flew to Saint Petersburg on Saturday to get reassurances from Russian president Vladimir Putin that Moscow’s position has remained unchanged. “Once again the identical stands of Serbia and Russia regarding Kosovo has been confirmed,” Kostunica said after the meeting.
Bush is expected to try to soften Russian position at a meeting with Putin next month, but Kosovo Albanian language media hailed Bush’s remarks as a “guarantee” for Kosovo's independence. Prime minister Agim Ceku called on ethnic Albanians to remain calm, saying time was on their side. "In a way, Bush has proclaimed Kosovo's independence,” he said.
“The only realistic, pragmatic and possible solution is Kosovo's independence and the time for such a decision has come,” Ceku added.
In contrast to the jublilation in Pristina, Serbian press and political analysts agreed there was nothing new in Bush's Tirana speech, because the American position on Kosovo has been known for some time. Apart from "pleasing Albanian ears," Bush’s statement was viewed in Belgrade as an act of desperation because things were not moving as smoothly as expected and upping of the pressure on Moscow to change its position.
Serbia: Christian (Orthodox)
Albania: Muslim 70%, Albanian Orthodox 20%, Roman Catholic 10%
However years of communism secularized them heavily.
You've got the order wrong. El Stupido is already busy giving away our sovereignty.
Why can’t he?
He’s been trying to give away American territory by destroying our southern borders for quite some time. And now he’s on his way back to Washington to redouble his efforts in that direction.
Both. The Serbs are Eastern Orthodox Christians and speak Serbian. The Kosovo Albanians are nearly all Moslem and speak Albanian.
You can watch Albanians burn and tear down the cross from a Serbian Orthodox Church with gusto. This was just 1 of more than 150 that have been destroyed by Muslim Albanians since our intervention in 1999.
Must be some of that there “strategery” /sarcasm
“he can’t give away what does not belong to him”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sounds like the pm is a student of Cong. Davis Crockett!
He's trying to, but we are a little harder to convince given that he can't sanction us, starve us, bomb us for 78 straight days, then start ripping off pieces of our country to give to Mexico, as easily as he can to a small Balkan country.
Of course Pres Bush won't be doing this. He doesn't have that power. However, the various sovereign states around the world can do this. Also, the territory of concern is a ward of the state and the state isn't Serbia but a consortium of states--a superstate.
“El Stupido is already busy giving away our sovereignty.”
You can natter on with your negativism, you nabob of nationalism . . .
I for one *welcome* our new Latino/Mexicano overlords!
Amigos—bienvenidos! Mi hermana? Si, acqui!
Can I help you on-and-off? Ayuda se?
Mucho gusto, bien venidos!
My job? Here you go!
Bien venidos!
It is along Balkan lines. IOW it is not so simple.
However, find the not-so-insidious way Serbian freepers try to tie the Kosovo/Serbia thing to topics which (in their opinion) will get Americans onto their side--i.e. Kosovo and Albania spreading islamofascism across Europe, and now a connection to supposed waning support for Israel and the 'loss of American sovereignty' (to illegal aliens or the North American Union?)--as being somewhat disingenuous.
I really liked Bush. However, I’m glad that at this moment he’s weaken by many mistakes so that hopefully nobody listens to him about giving away Kosovo.
The numbers are correct for Albania, but not for Kosovo. Kosovo is over 95% Muslim.
The entire Balkans were "secularized by communism" for 50 years, but it didn't take very long after the fall of communism for all of them -- Catholic Croats, Orthodox Serbs, Bosnian and Albanian Muslims, to reclaim their religious roots -- and somethimes quite radically and violently.
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