BELGIUM: Kosovo mediator urges move on Serb visas to ease deadlock

The European Union's mediator on Kosovo urged European states on Sunday (October 14) to relax visa rules for Serbian travellers, arguing the move could help unlock talks with Belgrade on the future of its breakaway province, Kosovo. Talking before a new round of negotiations with Serb and Kosovo Albanian officials in Brussels, Wolfgang Ischinger said the two sides remained far apart even as a December 10 deadline for an accord approached. Kosovo Albanians, fed up that their U.N.-administered province remains in limbo eight years after a NATO bombing campaign to halt Serb atrocities, have threatened to declare independence anyway if no deal is reached by December 10 -- an outcome that could unleash new chaos in the Balkans. Ischinger appealed to both sides to take "painful decisions" to achieve a breakthrough in the talks, noting time was running short for a compromise. "We have found some encouraging elements ... but we have certainly not seen enough," he said of an earlier round of talks in New York last month mediated by Ischinger and his Russian and U.S. counterparts of the so-called "troika". "We must get them to recognise the fact that they are too far apart and there is quite a distance to be covered." Ischinger told reporters. "It would be a good signal if we in the EU could let our friends in Serbia know that sooner rather than later the requirement for visas will be lifted for normal travellers from Serbia to EU member countries," he added. The EU announced accords with Serbia and four other Balkan nations last month making it easier for students, researchers, business people and journalists to travel to the EU, but Belgrade insists visas should be scrapped altogether. Italy has openly called on the EU to soothe Belgrade on Kosovo by relaxing visa rules and granting it the official status of a candidate for EU membership. But the EU insists officially there can be no such carrots to lure Belgrade into a deal on Kosovo, and any decision on visas would remain in the hands of individual EU states. Ischinger said it was possible that, as the deadline neared, the troika would call both sides to a conference of unlimited duration to thrash out a deal, but denied any solution would be imposed on them. Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic will lead the Serb delegation at Sunday's talks at EU headquarters in Brussels, while Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Agim Ceku will head the Albanian side.

ITN Source | October 14, 2007

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