Kosovo poised to declare independence on February 17 - report

19:09 Fri 15 Feb 2008 - Elena Koinova

Photo: Reuters

Kosovo will declare independence on February 17 2008 at 5pm local time, Kosovo government officials said minutes before an official news conference held prime minister Hashim Thaci, mediapool.bg quoted a Reuters report as saying.

Thaci himself, however, refrained from giving away the timing, saying only that independence would be declared "within days".

At the same time, Russia announced that if Kosovo gained international recognition, it would resort to a change of policy toward secessionist Georgian regions, although it refused to say whether that would result in outright recognition of their independence.

The US and most EU member states are expected to swiftly recognise Kosovo, despite resistance from Belgrade and Moscow.

Serbian foreign minister Vuk Jeremic said Belgrade would refrain from using force to stop the secession of its southern province, but also warned that this precedent would trigger a chain of separatist moves across the world.

Comments

Comments by George Chaldakov, MD - 19:38 16 Feb 2008
	TOGETHERNESS is indeed required in support to Serbia now - to protect its own Kosovo, that is, not allowing any "independence" of this sacral, axiomatic Serbian land (though that has been carefully mastering by some euroatlantic politicians in collaboration with Albanian leaders). Whatsoever, believe that the wisdom and justice worldwide for Kosovo staying a part of Serbia would be appreciated. And wonder why Bulgarian intellectuals (at least) do not declare any support to Serbia (as for example, a large number of them did recently declare their request Russia to providing with some secret documentations related to Bulgaria, or something like that). REMINDER: we have to clearly know that reciprocal altruism is the best way of getting consensus, especially in our Balkanic region. God bless the independence of Serbia.
Comments by smiley - 09:55 18 Feb 2008
	While I may support an independent Kosovo, UDI breaks the terms of UN Resolution 124 which mentions the maintaining of territorial integrity of FRY. The terms of the resolution - without a formal solution reached by the UN etc - are broken and Serbia and Russia etc are correct in non-recognition. The integrity of the UN disappears totally. We do not need any rules etc any more and anyone and everyone can engage in anarchy.