Feith admits recognition process of Kosovo weaker than EU expected
EU’s special representative to Kosovo Pieter Feith has admitted that the expectations Brussels had for the recognition of Kosovo would not be met.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Friday, March 21, 2008
"If you look at this as a numbers game - for instance, 50 per cent of the members of the UN General Assembly by September, when it convenes - this could be seen as falling short of what we had hoped", Feith said.
This is why the EU counting would turn to what it sees as "quality" of countries recognizing Kosovo.
"In qualitative terms you have the most significant economic democracies of the world," Feith said.
Pro-Albanian lobbyist Janusz Bugajski of the Washington Center for Eastern European Studies in Washington has particularly expressed disappointment at the fact that Kosovo has been recognized only four Islamic countries only.
"A great surprise is the Islamic countries, a fact that only four Islamic countries have recognized Kosovo, and that none of them is Arab ... this means that for them an anti-American feeling is more important than pro-Islamic feeling", Bugajski said.
In Sofia, an open letter was signed a hundred leftist Bulgarian intellectuals protesting against the country's recognition of independent Kosovo.
The letter is addressed to Bulgaria's President, Prime Minister, the Chair of the Parliament, and is entitled "The Mad Lead the Blind".
The letter uses a rather harsh language to describe Bulgaria's politicians because of their decision "to recognize the weird territory called independent state Kosovo". They are contrasted with Greece and Romania's "prudent" leaders, who did not take such a step.
The intellectuals, who qualify themselves "writers, scientists, artists, musicians, actors, and regular patriots", claim the men and women in power in Bulgaria were "devoid of the ability to think about the strategic national interests of the Fatherland".
The letter states the Serbs are Bulgarians' brothers in blood and faith, and that if Bulgaria betrays them today, it will be betrayed tomorrow, and does not forget to mention the fact that in 1999 government of PM Ivan Kostov allowed NATO to use Bulgaria's air space to bomb "the brotherly Serbia people".
"Are you crazy, are you blind, or are you just corrupt? What is the price of your souls?", the letter concludes.
The statement is followed by more than a hundred names of prominent Bulgarian public figures including the actor Georgi Kaloyanchev, the historian and leftist MP Professor Andrey Pantev, the artist Svetlin Rusev, the theater director Andrey Slabakov, the opera singer Hristina Angelakova, and several Bulgarian bishops to name but a few.
