Serbia’s defiant plan to include the territory of Kosovo in its May 11 elections has emerged as a pressing issue as the dispute over Kosovo’s status moved to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

The UNSC met behind closed doors on April 21 to discuss a regular quarterly report on Kosovo by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) chief Joachim Ruecker. A key point that has angered Serbia is the report’s apparent acceptance of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence on February 17 as a fait accompli.

Meanwhile, even as Serbia and Kosovo and their respective backers restated their mutually exclusive positions at the UN, at least one of Kosovo’s neighbours – Macedonia – seemed to be coming to terms with the UN’s controversial acceptance of the new reality, when Macedonian and Kosovo representatives discussed border demarcation issues.

At the UNSC meeting, Serbian president Boris Tadic, according to a statement of his remarks, called for new negotiations on Kosovo’s status, urged those states that had recognised Kosovo to reconsider, and rejected the opposition of Kosovo and other countries to Serbia holding elections in Kosovo.

“We believe it is important that everywhere in Kosovo, where citizens recognise the Republic of Serbia as their state, they choose in a democratic way their own municipal, as well as parliamentary, representatives,” Tadic said.

Tadic said that he was keen to seek a “stable solution that would mend the very bad situation caused by the unilateral decision of Kosovo’s provisional institutions”.

“Serbia continues to believe that only through resuming negotiations can we arrive at a mutually acceptable and sustainable solution, which will bring lasting peace to all the peoples of the Balkans. The Security Council is the only institution that can bring a legally valid decision,” Tadic said.

According to international news agencies’ reports, Kosovo prime minister Hashim Thaci told reporters after the UNSC meeting that while Kosovo respected dual citizenship for its citizens, the holding of elections by Serbia in the territory would be “illegitimate”.
US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, in a statement sent to reporters, said that the Serbian election plan was a “provocation”. Such elections would be “unhelpful” and “illegal”, he said.

Khalilzad said: “We are also concerned by Belgrade’s actions to pressure Kosovo Serbs from co-operating with authorities in Pristina or from interacting with their Albanian neighbours. Belgrade’s position runs contrary to the principle of multi-ethnicity that the UN has sought to foster in Kosovo.”

UK ambassador to the UN John Sawers said that Ruecker’s judgment was that the elections, “especially elections on an ethnic basis, would be divisive and unhelpful”.

Sawers said: “It’s going to be a very difficult period ahead. Serbia and Russia continue to deny the new reality in Kosovo. But we need to move forward in recognition of the perspectives and ensure that stability, peace and good governance will prevail in Kosovo.”

Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin said: “We believe that the Serbs have every right to conduct their parliamentary and municipal elections when they see fit.”

Earlier, on April 18, Macedonia and Kosovo made the first tangible step towards settling their border dispute. A mixed technical commission tasked with “the demarcation and delineation of the state border between the Republic of Macedonia and Kosovo”, met in Skopje for the second time on that date, the Macedonian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Todor Nanev, on behalf of Macedonia, and Bekim Colaku for Kosovo signed a protocol outlining the process of demarcation in line with article 3.3, annex VIII, of the Ahtisaari proposal for the Kosovo status settlement, the ministry said.

The article in question said that “Kosovo shall engage with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to establish a joint technical commission within 120 days of the entry into force of this Settlement to physically demarcate the border and address other issues arising from the implementation of the 2001 agreement between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”.

The commission will have finished work within one year from the date it is set up.

Pristina has challenged the accord between Yugoslavia, which was at the time a loose confederation between Serbia and Montenegro, and Macedonia, saying that Belgrade had no right to sign the agreement on its behalf. The area disputed by Kosovo is about 2500 ha, Colaku said. The total border between the two countries will be about 125km.

Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski met with his Kosovo counterpart Hashim Thaci in Skopje just days before the province declared independence, saying afterwards that they exchanged opinions in a “private unofficial meeting”, agreeing that the process should be kept in motion. Gruevski did not say at that time how the two countries hoped to settle their dispute.

Although Macedonia ostensibly declares that its recognition of Kosovo is and should not be tied to the border row, its actions so far speak otherwise – it is showing no signs it plans to recognise its new neighbour soon. On April 18, speaking to Czech daily Lidove Noviny, Macedonian foreign minister Antonio Milososki said that the current situation still posed risks to the region’s stability.

“Developments in Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia, these are constant topics to which the EU should be paying special attention,” Milososki said.

“Macedonia has not recognised Kosovo yet. We are discussing it. Macedonia is not Britain. We are neighbours of Serbia and Kosovo and we want good relations with both of them,” Milososki said.

Skopje is still largely dependent on its economic ties with Belgrade and is unwilling to jeopardise this.

When asked whether the agreement signed by Nanev and Colaku on Friday implicitly recognised Kosovo, Nanev said it was “signed by the chairmen of technical commissions and mediators,” Serbian news agency Beta reported, as quoted by private broadcaster B92.