Commenting on the situation in a front page editorial, Kosovo Albanian language daily Koha ditore said on Friday that it now "depends on Kosovo Albanians when the province will become independent."

The paper said that Western countries, which support independence, would in the forthcoming period intensify their contacts with Kosovo ethnic Albanian leaders to inform them that “despite the support which the international community lends to this option, Kosovo Albanians are those who must conquer independence.”

Quoting an unnamed Western diplomat, the paper said that it was now “up to the Kosovars when they will get independence.” Koha ditore sources have told the paper that “even Belgrade is aware of this, but continues to stick the head in the sand.”

In fact, Vuk Draskovic, foreign minister of Serbia and Montenegro, was very sceptical after meeting with the United States officials in Washington, where he attended president Bush’s traditional “breakfast prayer” on Thursday. "The message is that unrealistic political demands, when it concerns Kosovo, significantly weaken our negotiating position and jeopardise even what is possible, if we continue to demand the impossible,” Draskovic told Serbian television.

Belgrade is offering Kosovo ethnic Albanians broad autonomy, but their leaders insist they will settle for nothing short of independence. Serbian military and police forces pulled out of Kosovo in 1999, after NATO's bombing campaign, and the international community has made clear that Kosovo cannot return to its previous status as a Serbian province.

“If the great powers permit Kosovo's independence, they will give a signal that new borders can be drawn along ethnic lines,” said Slobodan Samardzic, an aid to Serbian prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica. “This entire region is multi-ethnic and those who start redrawing borders are playing with fire,” Samardzic added. He warned that satisfying ethnic Albanian demands in Kosovo might have a domino effect, with the ethnic Albanian minority in Macedonia, as well as Serbs and Croats in Bosnia and Muslims in Serbia’s Sandzak region looking to secede.

Ted Carpenter, a foreign policy expert in the Washington Cato Institute, has said that a “secret solution for Kosovo is independence,” because the international community believes it would be a “permanent” and tenable solution. “The international community believes that Kosovo, with a large degree of autonomy within Serbia, isn’t a tenable solution,” Carpenter said.

Carpenter underlined that among the six-nation Contact Group, which met in London this week and will have the main influence in deciding the future status of Kosovo, only Russia opposes independence. The US and Great Britain favour "conditional independence," with France, Italy and Germany "somewhere in the middle," he said.

But if Kosovo gains independence, the remaining 100,000 Serbs would be forced to leave the province, Carpenter warned. “Kosovo Albanians have already carried out ethnic cleansing, having expelled 240,000 Serbs from the province since 1999. I don’t believe the rest of Serbs would remain in Kosovo more than a few years if the province gains independence,” he predicted.

The talks on the final status of Kosovo had been scheduled for the end of January, but were postponed for the end of February owing to the death of Kosovo president Ibrahim Rugova. His successor should be elected next week, and Rugova’s Democratic Alliance of Kosovo has put forward a little known university professor, Fatmir Seidiu.

A British journalist and an expert on Balkan affairs, Tim Judah, told BBC that the talks would not actually deal with Kosovo's final status, “but with the future status of Kosovo Serbs. I’m sure that great powers have already decided to grant Kosovo conditional independence, and only details are now on the agenda,” said Judah.

Nicholas Gvozdev, editor of Washington foreign policy journal National Interest, questioned how independence could be taken away if Kosovo failed to fulfil the international community's conditions for this. “The term ‘conditional independence’ is used by those who want to create the impression that nothing has definitely been decided,” said Gvozdev. “From what I see in Washington, the difference between conditional and real independence is more of a semantic than a political nature,” Gvozdev concluded.

Source : Adnkronosinternational