Deadline on Kosovo Talks Said Dangerous

Dora Bakoyannis, right, Foreign Minister of Greece meets with Gert Rosenthal, left, Foreign Minister of Guatemala at United Nations headquarters on Monday, Sept. 25, 2006. (AP Photo/David Karp) (David Karp - AP)

WASHINGTON -- With advancement in all the Balkans depending on it, a political solution in the Serbian province of Kosovo is too important to risk losing to a Dec. 31 deadline hanging over negotiations, says Greece's foreign minister.

"All our efforts ... whether on a European or on a regional level, will be in vain unless we firmly entrench political stability in the region," Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis said Tuesday. "The key challenge we face as an international community relates to the fate of Kosovo."

She said that makes the year-end deadline being pressed by the United States and others misguided.

In Belgrade on Tuesday, the U.S. State Department official in charge of European and Eurasian affairs again rejected an appeal from Serbia for more time to allow deeper negotiations. "I have yet to hear any argument which demonstrates a delay would bring anything at all," Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said.

"Unfortunately, despite months of negotiations, no concrete progress has been achieved so far," Bakoyannis said in her speech. "The Serbs appear ready to agree to everything but independence and the Kosovo Albanians to nothing short of independence. Greece believes that we must not risk achieving a long-lasting viable solution for the sake of meeting a preset, arbitrary deadline."

Kosovo has been under the control of the United Nations since 1999, after a 78-day NATO air war drove out Serbian troops sent by Serbia's then leader, Slobodan Milosevic, to crush insurrection from the province's restive Albanian majority.

Bakoyannis said details of the future arrangements in the landlocked, poor province, in which more than half the 2 million people are under 30 years old, are too difficult to force concessions on the negotiators. Anyway, she said, no matter how the talks unfold, the an international presence must be maintained for a long time.

"Both sides should be strongly encouraged to protect human rights and respect for minorities," she said. "Unfortunately, history in the Balkans has not been kind to minorities or human rights."

Serbia is one of the most significant countries in Southeastern Europe, she said, but it still is held back by centuries of misrule, not least by Milosevic, who died in The Hague, Netherlands, this year while being tried on war crimes charges.

"We must remember the lessons of history that teach us that neither a country's humiliation nor one's absolute victory guarantees peace and stability in the long term," she said.

"This is even more pertinent in the case of Serbia," she said. "Indeed, no Balkan equilibrium can ignore Serbia, and we must do our best to discourage the rise of extremist nationalistic voices."