Serbia: Great victory for international law
Serbian officials have hailed the UN General Assembly vote as a “great victory for international law” and an opportunity to reopen the status talks
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Thursday, October 09, 2008
"We shall never give up on Serbia's integrity ... But the way in which we will keep insisting on Kosovo is what is very important - in our fight for Kosovo we are not to enter into confrontations," Serbian president Boris Tadic said.
He noted that the adoption of the resolution was not the end and that Serbia had to make preparations for the next steps it would make, which, as he pointed out, would not be steps of confrontation.
Tadic also said that the acceptance of Serbia's initiative that the International Court of Justice examined the legality of Kosovo's unilateral independence declaration would prevent a crisis of the international legal system, which might take place if other territories worldwide tried to secede from their motherlands.
He reminded that the unilateral declaration of Kosovo independence represented an attempt of dividing a member of the United Nations contrary to its own will and international law.
Serbia's minister for Kosovo Goran Bogdanovic said the adoption of the resolution showed that Kosovo's UDI should be re-examined and that negotiations on Kosovo's status should be renewed.
"This confirms the correctness of Serbia's peaceful, diplomatic and political struggle for the preservation of sovereignty and territorial integrity," Bogdanovic said.
"We are satisfied that despite huge pressure, present all the time, and especially prominent in the past few days, Serbia has proved that law and justice are on its side," he said.
"Serbia will continue to urge a peaceful solution for the return to the negotiating table in order to solve this very sensitive issue to the benefit of all sides," Bogdanovic underlined.
Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said on Wednesday evening that the adoption of Serbia's draft resolution at the UN General Assembly "has transferred the issue of Kosovo future status from the political onto the legal battlefield" and that the acceptance of the Serbia proposal represented a "victory not only of Serbia, but also of international law and justice in international relations."
Jeremic said that strong pressures had been made against the Serbian initiative, and that until the very voting, the countries that opposed the resolution had been trying to lobby against the initiative.
Jeremic underlined that Serbia had a "strong case" and that it was "clear to everyone that international law was violated with the unilateral proclamation of the independence" of Kosovo.
