Kosovo prime minister plays down border dispute
By Neil MacDonald in Pristina
Published: April 27 2006 16:19 | Last updated: April 27 2006 16:19
Agim Ceku, prime minister of Kosovo, played down a border dispute with
neighbouring Macedonia on Thursday, saying that the current border
would not change after the breakaway Serbian province gains formal
independence.
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In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Ceku said that the line
agreed by Macedonia and Serbia in 2001 would be respected in practice,
even if Belgrade had no authority to speak for Kosovo. The 90 per cent
ethnic-Albanian province has been under United Nations administration
since the expulsion of Serb-led Yugoslav forces in 1999.
"There will be no change of borders," Mr Ceku said.
However, the demarcation of the boundary through the mountainous
Debelde area - a step Macedonia has pushed for repeatedly since Mr
Ceku took office March 9 - can only proceed when Kosovo becomes a
sovereign state.
"This, for us, is a very technical issue, not a political issue and
not a source of political destabilisation," Mr Ceku insisted.
The day before, he had rankled Macedonia's government by visiting
Debelde and rejecting Serbia's right to make sovereign decisions
there. According to Reuters newswires, Prime Minister Ceku said that
the line through the area's rugged pastoral lands should be
renegotiated.
Vlado Buckovski, Macedonia's prime minister, has demanded closure on
this "open border question" as a pre-condition for Kosovo's
independence. The UN Security Council endorsed the Serbian-Macedonian
border deal in 2001 over the objections of Kosovo Albanian leaders.
Both prime ministers have come under domestic pressure lately to beat
their drums over Debelde. In the absence of an outright territorial
disagreement, Mr Ceku and Mr Buckovski have ratcheted up their
respective positions on when demarcation should happen.
Macedonia's forthcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for July
5, are the reason the issue has come up now, according to Mr Ceku. But
he, too, had to placate angry villagers, some of whose properties were
divided by the new boundary, officials in Kosovo's government said.
Under the 2001 agreement, Serbia transferred 2,500 hectares to
Macedonia, which had seceded from the Yugoslav federation ten years
before. The current misunderstanding shows why Kosovo needs sovereignty
as soon as possible, Mr Ceku said.
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