Serbian prime minister says he no longer trusts his pro-EU government ministers

[Crvena zvezda]

Serbian prime minister says he no longer trusts his pro-EU government ministers
The Associated PressPublished: March 7, 2008


BELGRADE, Serbia: Serbia's nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said Friday he no longer trusts his pro-European Union coalition government partners, heralding the likely collapse of his Cabinet.

"The government is in a major crisis," Kostunica said in a statement.

"I no longer trust the current coalition partners that they are sincerely fighting for the preservation of Kosovo" within Serbia's borders, Kostunica said.

On Thursday, pro-Western government ministers in Kostunica's Cabinet rejected demands by his nationalists that Serbia abandon its bid for EU membership because nations in the bloc have recognized Kosovo.

In the statement, Kostunica denounced the ministers belonging to the Democratic and G17-Plus parties for failing "to insist that only Serbia as a whole with Kosovo as its part can become an EU member."

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"In the next few days, parties in the Parliament must come to an agreement on how to come out of this crisis," Kostunica said.

Kostunica's statement indicates that he will try to kick the pro-Western groups out of his Cabinet, and then try to form a new government with ultranationalists loyal to the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

Nada Kolundzija, a Democratic Party lawmaker, rejected Kostunica's accusations and said that only new elections could resolve the crisis.

Kostunica insists that EU governments that recognized last month's Kosovo independence declaration must rescind their decisions before Serbia resumes pre-membership talks with the 27-nation bloc.

Pro-Western President Boris Tadic opposes tying Serbia's EU membership to the issue of Kosovo, which has been recognized as an independent state by several leading EU nations, including Britain, France and Germany.

In Kosovo, a leader of the Serbs there denounced Tadic for his pro-EU policies.

"It is clear now that an independent Kosovo has not been created only in Washington and Brussels, but also in Tadic's Cabinet, which has agreed to hand over a part of Serbia's territory," said Marko Jaksic, who is also a prominent member of Kostunica's conservative party.

Kosovo, whose population is predominantly ethnic Albanian, had been under U.N. control since 1999, when NATO launched an air war to stop Milosevic's crackdown on separatists.

Serbia, which considers the territory its historic and religious heartland, has rejected Kosovo's statehood as illegal. Russia, China and other nations support Belgrade's position.