Kostunica: The EU has to choose between SAA with Serbia and mission to Kosovo
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said Thursday that the EU would on “have to choose” on January 28 whether it will sign the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with Serbia or decide to send a EU mission to Kosovo as a first step towards an imposed secession of the province.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Friday, January 04, 2008
"On January 28, the EU will have to choose whether it will sign the SAA with Serbia, or whether it will, under pressure from the U.S., decide to send its mission to Kosovo in order to start implementing the rejected Ahtisaari plan for supervised independence, i.e. for stripping Serbia of a part of its territory," Kostunica said.
According to him, if the EU makes the unlawful decision to send its mission, it will annul the SAA initialed with Serbia.
He also said that on January 28 the EU was deciding whether it would take part in the breaking of Serbia or would sign the SAA with Serbia as its partner.
"One excludes the other, so the EU cannot on January 28 at the same time break Serbia apart and then sign the SAA with that kind of Serbia. Serbia has clearly said it wants to sign the SAA with the EU, now it is the EU's turn to also clearly announce its decision: is a whole Serbia its partner, or would it rather send its mission to build a puppet state according to the Ahtisaari plan," Kostunica said.
Serbia and the EU are expected to sign the SAA on January 28, when the EU foreign ministers will convene next in Brussels.
The Union had previously said it would send a mission to Kosovo even without U.N. Security Council's approval, which is strongly opposed by Serbia and Russia.
