Serbia threatens force over Kosovo
Cites plan to block independence
BELGRADE - Serbia is ready to use force to prevent Western states from recognizing Kosovo as an independent state, a senior Serbian official warned yesterday.
Dusan Prorokovic, Serbia's state secretary for Kosovo, outlined an array of measures to squeeze Kosovo, including the possible deployment of Serbian forces to the province, the sealing of its borders, and a trade embargo, that he said Serbia was ready to take in the event that Kosovo's Albanian-dominated government declared independence and was recognized by Western governments.
The potential steps are the harshest outlined so far by the government here and come as negotiations between the two sides overseen by Russia, the European Union, and United States appear to be in deadlock. The United Nations has set a Dec. 10 deadline for the conclusion of the talks, after which the United States has indicated it would recognize Kosovo unilaterally.
International officials in Kosovo, regional analysts, and Albanian politicians have repeatedly stated that a return of Serbian troops would spark a renewed conflict.
Until now, Serbia has shied away from making any threats that could associate it with the repressive response by its security forces to an ethnic Albanian insurgency during the 1990s, when Slobodan Milosevic was the president of Yugoslavia.
In an interview in the Serbian capital, Prorokovic warned that unilateral recognition by Western states would give Serbia the right to return its troops to the province, and to annul an eight-year agreement between NATO and the then-Yugoslav government regulating the troops' exclusion. Prorokovic is also a senior member of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's Serbian Democratic party.
"In case of self-proclamation, it is not an active paper anymore," Prorokovic said, referring to the Kumanovo military accord. "Without Kumanovo, our army can go back without any legal limits," he said. "It can cross the boundary and go everywhere in Kosovo without any legal problems."
The warning comes ahead of the announcement of a package offered to the ethnic Albanians in Vienna last week, terms of which are to be made public on Monday.
