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WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- A U.S. diplomat in Washington said a solution to the future status of Serbia's mainly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo province could be decided by April. U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns told Voice of America that U.N. special envoy to Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari will begin a series of talks with Kosovo ethnic-Albanian leaders in Pristina and Serbian authorities in Belgrade soon after Serbia's parliamentary elections set for Jan. 21. Burns said he hoped the Kosovo solution could be found "one to two months" after the Serbian elections. He said Washington does not support any option nor...

Belgrade, 26 Oct. (AKI) - The United States is showing signs of jitteriness over the status of the breakaway province of Kosovo, as the international community moves away from granting Kosovo the independence wanted by most of its overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian majority, the Serbian government coordinator for Kosovo, Sanda Raskovic Ivic, has said. Raskovic Ivic was commenting on a "slip of tongue" by American envoy to Kosovo Frank Wiesner, who stated in the Kosovo capital Pristina on Tuesday that Washington wants the status issue resolved this year. "We will insist on independence – excuse me – we will insist on...

Washington -- Serbia can have a prosperous, democratic future and be a "force for stability," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Serbian President Boris Tadic as they signed a status-of-forces agreement between the two nations September 7 in Washington. Tadic is visiting the United States to hold private meetings with various U.S. officials about the future status of the Kosovo province, currently administered by the United Nation. The latest round of U.N.-sponsored Kosovo talks began September 7 in Vienna, Austria. (See related article.) Meeting with reporters in Washington, Rice said the United States and Serbia have a shared vision of...

Podgorica, Montenegro: IT WAS a Balkan love feast!" said James Lyon, regional expert for the International Crisis Group, about Montenegro's independence celebration beginning on July 12. In a notoriously fractious part of the world, the festivities drew Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians, Albanians, and even some Serb politicians, as the Montenegrins breathed an enormous sigh of relief at their divorce from the Belgrade regime. Montenegro has fewer than 700,000 people, a tormented history, and plenty of challenges. But it also has magnificent assets: beautiful mountains and beaches, and basic amity between its Slav Orthodox majority and its Muslim Slav and Albanian minorities....

Belgrade, 2 July 06. (Tanjug) – The Coordination Center for Kosovo and Metohija announced that UNMIK Chief Soren Jesen-Petersen “leaving Kosovo in an armored vehicle”, showed that the international community did not fulfill its basic task for seven years, such as the creation of elementary security conditions of free living and freedom of movement. “Petersen’s earlier statement, stated that he is leaving Kosovo for private reasons. Before his departure he clearly stated slogans on behalf of Albanian lobbyists who use all means in the fight for independence of the Serbian southern province”, states the Center at the Sunday announcement. Coordination...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Montenegro on Wednesday became the 192nd member of the United Nations, a month after it ended its 88-year partnership with Serbia that completed the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. "I declare the Republic of Montenegro admitted to membership in the United Nations," U.N. General Assembly President Jan Eliasson announced after calling for approval by acclamation in the 191-nation body. General Assembly members then broke into applause as the Balkan country's president, Filip Vujanovic, Foreign Minister Miodrag Vlahovic and U.N. envoy Nebojsa Kaludjerovic were escorted to their new seats, next to the Mongolian delegation. "I am confident...

PRISTINA, Serbia - Kosovo's top leaders travel to Washington next week to hold talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the president's office said Friday. President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Agim Ceku are to meet Rice on Monday, said Muhamet Hamiti, the president's adviser. Sejdiu will visit the United States for the first time since he was elected in February, succeeding Kosovo's late President Ibrahim Rugova, who died of lung cancer earlier this year. During his trip, Sejdiu will meet other officials in the State Department and the White House, the statement said. Ceku is also scheduled to...

End Balkanization Now! By Aleksandar Mitic An old saying in Montenegro used to say “Montenegro and Serbia – one family". Today, pro-independence graffiti in Montenegro read “Montenegro and the Basque Country – one family”. Indeed, if the preliminary results of the Montenegrin referendum on independence are confirmed, the process of the balkanization of the Balkans will have scored one more point. Some say it also paved a chance for many independence-hopefuls around Europe, be it in Catalonia, the Basque Country or Scotland, which have sent their observer missions to Podgorica to monitor the mechanics of intra-state divorce. It might be...

BELGRADE, Serbia, June 8 — Seven years after Kosovo was placed under United Nations control, it appears increasingly likely that the province will be allowed to break away from Serbia formally and become an independent nation. Members of the United Nations Security Council appear to be leaning toward permitting Kosovo to go its own way. The Council is expected to vote on Kosovo's fate by the end of the year, unless the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians, who have been negotiating unsuccessfully for months, reach a resolution. But some of the world's most powerful countries are fearful the move will encourage...

Sarajevo, 8 June (AKI) - Bosnian Muslim religious leader Reiss ul-Ulema Mustafa Ceric has accused the country's Catholic and Orthodox Christians of undermining the country and advocating the partitioning of Bosnia. Ceric was quoted by the Sarajevo daily, Dnevni Avaz, as saying that former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic and Croatia's Franjo Tudjman deal, allegedly made in the early nineties to divide Bosnia, had been taken over by the Serbian Orthodox and Croatian Catholic Church. As a proof of an alleged conspiracy, Ceric said that the bishops of the two churches have been meeting without Muslim representatives. "It is well known...

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Granting independence to Serbia's southern province of Kosovo against the will of Serbia would destabilize the Balkans, Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic warned on Tuesday. The United Nations is mediating talks on Kosovo's future status, which Western diplomats say are likely to conclude with a form of independence by the end of the year. Serbia is adamantly opposed to such an outcome. "I am very afraid of the possible imposed solution against the will of Belgrade of turning Kosovo into a state," Draskovic told a news conference. "The whole region, I think, would inevitably face turbulence." The...

After seven years of frustrated attempts, the separatist regime in Montenegro celebrated victory Sunday night, as it managed to drum up the 55.5 percent of the votes necessary to win the independence referendum. What would be a landslide in any Western election was actually the narrowest of margins in Montenegro, as the acceptable threshold set by the Brussels bureaucrats was 55 percent. It took weeks of pro-independence propaganda in government-monopolized media, multi-million-euro public works timed for the referendum, shady political deals with ethnic minorities, and voter shenanigans to secure that .5 percent margin between victory and defeat. And though the...

Montenegro's independence could open a Pandora's box for other separatist movements in Europe and the former Soviet Union, with some already claiming the right to follow the same path. Separatists in Spain's Basque and Catalan regions were among the first to welcome Montenegro's independence vote as a positive omen for their aspirations of loosening ties with Madrid. But Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos stressed the situations in his country and Montenegro were "politically, diplomatically, juridically" incomparable and that making such a comparison would represent a "great irresponsibility". His view was supported by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana,...

PODGORICA, Serbia-Montenegro (CNN) -- Voters in Montenegro decided narrowly to sever the country's union with Serbia, a move that would break up the last two pieces of the former Yugoslavia, unofficial poll returns from Sunday's referendum indicated. The election watchdog group CEMI said late Sunday that 55.5 percent of the more than 410,000 voters who cast ballots supported independence -- just over the 55 percent required for the question to pass. "I'm sure that tonight a democratic Montenegro will be celebrated," said Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, whose Democratic Party of Socialists had pushed for Montenegro's full independence. Opposition spokesman Predrag...

BUDVA, Serbia-Montenegro - Voters are deciding whether to write the final chapter in the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, and the T-shirts show vividly how divided they are. Sunday's referendum is about whether tiny Montenegro should end its union with big-brother Serbia, and in the Adriatic resort of Budva, vendor Milan Jakic says his red "da" (yes) shirts are selling well. "If you compare the sale of yes and no," he says, "there is no doubt Montenegro will be independent." But six miles away in the quiet fishing village of Bigovo, the "ne" (no) shirt is doing well, and graffiti...

Montenegro has voted for independence from its union with Serbia, according to unofficial projections. If confirmed, the vote would erase the last vestige of the former Yugoslavia. Initial indications are that 56.3% of voters elected to secede from Serbia. The pro-independence bloc needs to win 55% of the vote to succeed. The question of independence has deeply divided Montenegro, with its opponents arguing that it will damage economic, family and political ties with Serbia.

Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku has says independence for mostly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo of Serbia's government in Belgrade is near. "A great dream of independence is close and it is only months away," said Ceku Monday in his regular weekly address in Kosovo, Serbia's southern province whose population of 1.8 million is 90 percent ethnic-Albanian........

Citizens of Montenegro, the mountainous, sparsely populated former Yugoslav territory, will vote Sunday in a referendum on severing its remaining links with Serbia. The pro-independence camp is confident of victory. The referendum will determine whether the state of Serbia and Montenegro continues to exist. That loose federation - replacing the rump Yugoslavia - was created three years at the strong urging of the European Union, which at the time opposed the Montenegrin government's desire to break with Serbia. Since both Serbia and Montenegro wish to join the EU, Brussels has been deeply involved in the May 21 referendum. Under its...

Western Macedonia, Illirida, and Greater Albania By Carl Savich The Greater Albania ideology envisions not only Kosovo and Metohija as integral part of a Greater Ethnic Albania, but also Western Macedonia, or Illirida. The basis for the Greater Albania strategy can be found in the 1878 League of Prizren. The map and borders for the future Greater Albania were determined by the Ottoman Turkish vilayet system. Kosovo and Metohija and Western Macedonia were part of the Kosovo vilayet. The capital of the Kosovo vilayet was Skopje. Kosovo-Metohija is not the end of the Greater Albania ideology, but only the beginning....

(Brussels, DTT-NET.COM)- A prestigious think-tank said that Kosovo’s independence must be imposed on Serbia, because of impossibility of reaching any agreement between Kosovan Ethnic Albanians and Serbian authorities on the future of UN administrated province. “To create a stable Kosovo, the international community must dare to impose independence rather than attempt finessing Pristina and Belgrade’s differences with an ambiguous and unstable settlement,“ International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report published on Friday. ICG says that agreement between all parties remains desirable in theory, “it is extremely unlikely that any Serbian government will voluntarily acquiesce to the kind of independence,...