Serbia May Reinstate Envoys Despite Disputes Over Kosovo

[Marcus Marulus]

Serbia May Reinstate Envoys Despite Disputes Over Kosovo

By DAN BILEFSKY

Published: July 17, 2008

PARIS — Serbia’s government may reinstate ambassadors it recalled from countries that recognized an independent Kosovo, a policy shift that senior Serbian officials said Belgrade was considering to show its commitment to the West.



Vuk Jeremić, the foreign minister of Serbia, said Europe was his government’s priority.

Serbia recalled ambassadors from several countries — including France, Germany, Britain, Belgium, Italy and the United States — to protest their decision to recognize Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in February. Serbia considers Kosovo its medieval heartland and has called its unilateral declaration of independence a reckless breach of international law.

But Vuk Jeremic, Serbia’s foreign minister, said in an interview here on Wednesday that his country’s new pro-Western government was determined to mend ties with Europe and Washington, even if its opposition to Kosovo’s independence remained as emphatic as ever.
He said the possibility of reinstating Serbia’s ambassadors, which he planned to discuss over the weekend with President Boris Tadic, would potentially affect about 20 ambassadors.

“The two foreign policy priorities of our new government are integrating Serbia into the European Union and continuing our diplomatic struggle to defend our sovereignty and preserve our territorial integrity,” Mr. Jeremic said. He added that Serbia was prepared to engage with all parties, including Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leaders, to solve the impasse over Kosovo.

The pro-Western coalition government, which was formed last week, is the product of an unlikely union between Mr. Tadic’s Democrats and the Socialist Party, once led by the strongman Slobodan Milosevic. While some Western diplomats and Serbian liberals have expressed alarm about the inclusion of the Socialists in the government, Mr. Jeremic, a leading Democrat, said he was convinced that the party was committed to taking Serbia into the European Union.

He said the Democrats had also received assurances that the Socialists, the party that was at war with the West in the 1990s, would not stand in the way of the union’s demands that Serbia hand over war-crimes suspects for trial in The Hague.

“The Socialists are no longer Milosevic’s party — Milosevic is dead,” he said. “The party joined with us to pursue European integration.”

While Belgrade appeared to be moderating its tone on Kosovo, Mr. Jeremic made it clear that Serbia’s policy of opposing Kosovo’s independence had not changed. He said he had recently been engaged in diplomacy on several continents to lobby countries not to recognize what Serbia considered a false state.

So far, 43 of the United Nations’ 192 members have recognized Kosovo, according to Kosovo’s government. The newborn country received a significant lift last week when an international donors’ conference in Brussels raised nearly $1.9 billion in aid.

Western diplomats have been hopeful that the new Serbian government’s pro-European Union stance will temper the opposition to Kosovo’s independence. Although Serbians remain upset over the West’s support for Kosovo, analysts say economic concerns have since trumped emotions, with most Serbs indicating that prosperity is their priority.

Serbia is one of Europe’s poorest nations, with many of its people earning about $500 a month.

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