Posted on 11/19/2008 7:22:51 AM PST by kronos77
Pristina. The Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanis has said that Greece would soon recognize the independence of Kosovo, the Serbian TV channel Studio B reports, citing Kosovo press. In an interview for the Albanian TV channel Vision Plus Bakoyannis has said that the exact date for the recognition is still not clear, but it would happen soon. According to the Minister the Kosovo problem was one of the oldest on the Balkans.
Ping!
thens.- The Greek government on Friday played down the significance of a meeting between Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis and the recently appointed foreign minister of the government of Kosovo, whose declaration of independence has not yet been recognised by Athens.
“There is no change in the Greek stance on the issue of Kosovo,” foreign ministry spokesman George Koumoutsakos stressed, while confirming that there had been a brief meeting between Bakoyannis and the Kosovo official Skender Hyseni on the sidelines of the South East European Cooperation Process (SEECP) summit in Bulgaria.
Asked why the meeting had not been announced, the spokesman replied that “short and informal meetings of this type, lasting only a few minutes, are routinely held on the sidelines of international conferences and are not always announced”.
He explained that the meeting with Hyseni had taken place the day after the government briefing for reporters covering the summit and had not been planned, so that it could be announced in advance. During the meeting, Bakoyannis had repeated the known Greek positions on the issue of Kosovo, the spokesman added.
“A country, like Greece, that has a special role in the region and aims at stability and security can talk to everyone, without this meaning any changed in its professed policy,” he said.
Koumoutsakos told reporters that the meeting was requested by Hyseni, who was attending the meeting as a representative of Kosovo’s political leadership within the framework of a delegation sent to the summit by the United Nations Mission to Kosovo (UNMIK).
The spokesman also pointed out that Athens had never concealed that a new state of affairs had arisen in Kosovo, adding that Greece would make a decision “after examining all aspects and ramifications of the new facts for the security of the region and in the context of wider national interests”.
Koumoutsakos’ statements about the meeting were cited later on Friday by alternate government spokesman Evangelos Antonaros, who also stressed that such brief meetings were a routine practice at international conferences and that Greece’s position had not changed.
According to main opposition PASOK’s spokesman George Papaconstantinou, however, the meeting had been “secret” and indicated a possible change in the government’s position on independence for Kosovo.
“Mrs Dora Bakoyannis was caught in the act. The question is what is the government’s true position on the issue of Kosovo’s independence, because we are hearing various things but seeing a tactic of secret diplomacy that is not compatible with the decisions of the United Nations nor with the things that the government has itself said from time to time,” the spokesman stressed.
Papaconstantinou had been asked to comment on a statement by PASOK’s shadow foreign minister Andreas Loverdos claiming a secret meeting between Bakoyannis and Hyseni.
“We once again call on the government to not unilaterally recognise a declaration of independence that destabilises the region and is counter to the fundamental decisions of the United Nations,” PASOK’s spokesman concluded.
Also, in commenting on a meeting between the FM Dora Bakoyannis and a Kosovo official, KKE leader Aleka Papariga said that “we consider the choice made by the Foreign Minister to meet, officially or unoficially ... with her counterpart from the new protectorate of Kosovo as a provocation. This is tantamount to recognition, at a time when fragmentation of countries should be condemned, and that of Serbia in particular; at a time when the creation of more and more protectorates in the Balkans is being organised. It is a provocation.”
The good news seems to be that a democrat will be in the whitehouse when the Serb and Russian tanks roll into Kosovo.
Peace , freedom and Christianity will return on Kosovo only with Serbian tanks....
Unintentionally hilarious . . . LOL.
Since you're ignoring any constraints imposed by reality, while you're at it you may as well send those imaginary tanks back into Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Croatia and Slovenia to reconstitute Yugoslavia.
The Russians couldn't even pull off a coup de main next door in Georgia, and Serbia, regardless of what the hard core dead enders hereabouts would say, has neither the stomach nor capacity for any further military adventurism.
Peace and freedom? Like when the damn Russians invaded most of Europe? That kind of peace and freedom? What a joke
Yeah the peace and freedom brought to you by criminal organ harvesters and drug dealers, you’re preferences are befuddling.
Then again disregarding history, they might take that fateful decision to step into the slime that constitutes the post modern “hellbent on destruction” world, with pimps like this acting as spokesmen:
“It doesn't really matter if Paraguay has recognized Kosovo,” this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, was quoted as saying. “Well over 65 percent of the wealth of the world has.”
Between the old communists and today's globalists, it's a real toss up as to who is truly more ruthless.
You’re the idiot if you can’t commie invasion didn’t destroy Europe.
Yeah, that's really what Serbia needs. Getting in bed with the Russians, pissing off the West and having to deal with a province full of heavily-armed, cranky minorities who hate Serbs.
Forget it. It's time for Serbia to move on. Let the West deal with Kosovo, if it is so inclined.
That's not as easy as it sounds when the last of the Serbs left in Kosovo are getting screwed over, including the priests and nuns who refuse to leave their ancient monasteries.
And then there are stories like this, where the Albanians cut off even medical supplies to the remaining Serbs and the West says, "Too bad, go screw yourselves, Serbs":
Enclave-bound medical supplies seized 19 November 2008 | 15:39 | Source: Beta KOSOVSKA MITROVICA -- Customs officers in southern Kosovska Mitrovica have seized a large consignment of medications destined for Serb villages in the Zubin Potok municipality.
Deputy Director of the Kosovska Mitrovica Health Center Milan Ivanović told Beta that Albanian customs officers had stopped a sanitary vehicle belonging to the northern Mitrovica Healthcare Center in the village of Košutovo yesterday afternoon.
The officers confiscated a large supply of medication intended for health centers in Dren, Banje, Crkolez and Suvo Grlo, and for patients living in majority Albanian communities.
The customs officers confiscated the entire consignment of medication and fined the driver and a nurse EUR 500. The officers also threatened to seize their vehicle next time, despite it being registered in full line with the law, said Ivanović, the president of the Serb National Council of Northern Kosovo.
He said that the confiscation of medicine was a new kind of pressure on the Serbs living in Albanian communities.
I agree. But, partition seems to be off the table and the idea that Serb tanks are going to roll back into Kosovo is a delusion.
So, what's the solution?
Commie invasion—OK I guess—but Marxists were in place in all the future satellite nations before the SOVIETS ever got into Central Europe. Every single state had its own version of a Commie Party before the Soviet Army ever got into central Europe.
Your major error in thinking is that you equate the Soviet era with the Russian era and ethnicity - this is a historical fallacy and probably infests those more often who are anti Russian and not necessarily anti Communist.
Russian people have never invaded Europe — on the contrary a whole host of Euros and others have invaded Russia from Mongols to Swedes to French to Turks.
Hit the books....
I guess someone forgot to tell the Poles, Finns, Swedes and the Baltic republics that they have never been invaded by Russians. And let's not forget about the Hungarians and Czechs, post-war.
I have NO problem with Russian people... It was the Soviet commie invasion that I was clearly referring to.
Are you really denying that at the heart, the USSR was Russian?
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