KOSOVO SCENESETTER FOR MAY 21-23 VISIT OF SPECIAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000437 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE NSC FOR BRAUN USUN FOR DREW SCHEFLETOWSKI E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/19/2016 TAGS: KDEM PGOV PHUM PINR PREL YI SUBJECT: KOSOVO SCENESETTER FOR MAY 21-23 VISIT OF SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FRANK WISNER Classified By: COM PHILIP GOLDBERG FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. Ambassador Wisner's visit finds Kosovo Albanian final status negotiators struggling to cope with the new shuttle phase of talks on decentralization. They are quickly learning that they are not as well prepared for the give-and-take of bargaining as they were for developing broad policy positions. Insisting they had put forward their best offer on decentralization at the May 4-5 Vienna session, as urged by Ambassador Wisner, the Pristina negotiators were frankly miffed when UN Deputy Special Envoy Albert Rohan later called their proposal a good basis for discussion rather than a bankable deal. The proposal they are putting together for next week's first Vienna session on preservation of cultural and religious sites apparently will be a forward-leaning reflection of several weeks of direct discussions with Kosovo-based leaders of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The Kosovo Albanian leaders realize they must bear down on Vienna topics and Standards implementation as the end-game approaches, but they are also acutely aware that the Kosovo Albanian public is deeply frustrated with seven years of post-war political limbo. Ambassador Wisner should urge Kosovo Albanian negotiators to give the Ahtisaari team a good deal more on decentralization and trust the USG to ensure that Ahtisaari will respect Council of Europe best practices and Pristina red lines. Wisner should impress on them that the best way to ease social unrest is for leaders to demonstrate a pragmatic capacity for self-rule and thereby allow the international community to swiftly move the final status process to conclusion. Wisner should particularly invite Pristina leaders to proactively implement newly transferred competencies in the new ministries of interior and justice and in the new Kosovo Property Agency. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) Special Representative on Kosovo Status Talks Ambassador Frank Wisner will find on his May 21-23 visit a Kosovo Albanian leadership needing from him more or less equal measures of praise, swift kicks, and guidance. The governing coalition that came into power on March 10 (following the January 21 death of President Ibrahim Rugova) has produced a revamped Kosovo Albanian final status negotiating team (a.k.a., the "Unity Team") that continues to earn solid grades for its engagement in the Vienna-based final status process and for its outreach to Kosovo minorities. In Vienna, Pristina negotiators tabled a serious proposal on decentralization that contemplates creation of four additional Serb-majority municipalities (vice 18 proposed by the Belgrade delegation) and is about to table a proposal on the preservation of cultural heritage and religious sites that they preview as forward-leaning. Decentralization: Make The Makings of a Deal -------------- ¶3. (C) For all its effort, however, the Unity's Team owes its good name more to comparisons to its dysfunctional predecessor than to any achievements of its own. Ambassador Wisner should impress on Pristina negotiators that their performance has gotten them a tryout in the big leagues where the international community will judge them by their success in making deals like a real government, not by their willingness to show up for meetings and table position papers. Wisner should acknowledge that their decentralization offer shows real movement on their part but stress that it's time to close a deal rather than quibble over cadastral zones, population estimates, and the like. He should suggest they take advantage of the closing of the highly publicized formal decentralization talks to quietly work with the Martti Ahtisaari/Rohan team to bring the Pristina offer into full conformity with the 2004 Council of Europe Charter for Local Self-Government. ¶4. (C) Rohan played the bad cop during a May 18 visit, clearly informing Pristina negotiators that they will have to PRISTINA 00000437 002 OF 003 improve on their offer. The negotiators insisted they had reached the end of what they can offer without risking a serious public backlash. The local press teed off on Rohan, alleging that he disingenuously pushed the Unity Team to make its best offer only to dismiss that offer when made as a mere starting point for discussions. Ambassador Wisner therefore has available to him a good cop role that he should assume by explaining that Rohan is merely trying to have the Pristina side distinguish concessions that may be politically painful but doable from concessions that cross red lines into true incompatibility with a unitary Kosovo. Wisner should assure Unity Team members, for example, that the USG stands ready to ensure that Belgrade will not control Serb majority municipalities in Kosovo, but should also make clear that the price of the USG assuming the role of surety is that Pristina remain flexible on all decentralization aspects that do not cross red lines. Wisner should push the Unity Team to develop a presumption of acceptability for all Ahtisaari/Rohan suggestions on decentralization with a view to enlisting UN support when real deadlocks emerge. ¶5. (C) In conversations with COM after Rohan's visit, Kosovo Albanian negotiators Hashim Thaci, Skender Hyseni, and Blerim Shala all said that what is at issue for them is not the particular new decentralization ideas that Rohan put on the table. The negotiators said they could accept all Rohan's proposals for creating and enlarging municipalities if they had some idea of any further concessions that may be required down the road. They said they are in a quandry about how to approach this new shuttle phase of talks. Ambassaodor Wisner should reassure them that their bottom lines will be respected. The Serbian Orthodox Church -- Potential Key to the Universe -------------- -------------- ¶6. (C) The news on the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) in Kosovo is all good and provides a foundation for a real SOC-Unity Team deal on the way forward. Since Ambassador Wisner's last visit, the SOC patriarchate in Pec hosted a two-day interfaith conference of Kosovo religious leaders, the Unity Team's conversation with moderate SOC leaders has quietly continued, UNMIK renewed the no-build protective zone around the Decani Monastery for another six months, KFOR removed its fixed checkpoint near the monastery, and the monastery hosted the first visit by area ethnic Albanian students since the war. ¶7. (C) During a May 18 dinner, Pristina negotiators Ylber Hysa, Ardian Gjini, and Enver Hoja previewed for poloffs and visitors (Ahtisaari team member and EUR/INR officer) their forthcoming paper on the preservation of cultural and religious sites. Hysa -- the paper's primary author and leader of the Pristina delegation to the May 23 session in Vienna -- said the paper will fairly reflect SOC input but will not include everything the church wanted. Proposed protective zones for religious sites for example, Gjini said, would be "measured in hectares, not kilometers." Gjini praised the realism of SOC leaders in Kosovo for proposing fewer sites for protection than Belgrade may have wished. All three negotiators expressed appreciation for the church's delicate position with respect to the status talks. Gjini particularly hoped that Bishop Teodosije Sibilic would be allowed to participate, saying "we could really use him there." ¶8. (C) Ambassador Wisner should tell Pristina negotiators that the church's predicament gives them an additional, urgent reason to hold nothing back in their initial offer on preservation of cultural and religious sites -- the church is a potential ally on this issue and could even emerge as Kosovo Serb leaders and spokespersons generally. Standards: Not a Four-Letter Word -------------- PRISTINA 00000437 003 OF 003 ¶9. (C) The international community has expended a great deal of effort in trying to convince Kosovo Albanian leaders that the Standards for Kosovo initiative still matters in the aftermath of a general recognition that the "Standards before status" policy has run its course. The Pristina leaders, on the other hand, complain that the international community has been moving goal posts by inventing new lists of action items and holding the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government (PISG) responsible for shortcomings in UNMIK's areas of jurisdiction. Ambassador Wisner should address this growing divide. He should push Pristina leaders to bear down on Standards in all its forums, especially in Standard-specific working groups but, more than this, the ambassador should urge the leaders to become creators rather than absorbers of Standards action items. Wisner should note that the PISG has recently been given major new responsibilities with the creation of the ministries of interior and justice and the Kosovo Property Agency and that those new responsibilities demand the tapping of Kosovar and international resources alike in developing implementation plans. ¶10. (C) Ambassador Wisner should remind the Kosovo Albanian leadership that the Standards and their action items have evolved greatly since SRSG Michael Steiner first articulated eight "Benchmarks of Good Governance" in April 2003 which evolved into the eight "Standards for Kosovo" in December 2003 and inspired the 482-action items of the "Kosovo Standards Implementation Plan" of March 2004 and the December 2004 list of 92 "Priority Action Items." These compilations, the ambassador should point out, were never meant as formulas for independence but illustrations of how mature governments function, particularly how they treat their minorities. He should invite the Pristina leaders to become full partners with the international community in directing the future course of the Standards process by assigning themselves new tasks in keeping with their new responsibilities. ¶11. (C) Ambassador Wisner should refer to the most recent international community efforts, led by the United States, to keep the Standards process dynamic as competencies are transferred. These action ideas include: address outstanding war-related agricultural and commercial property claims and institute a rental scheme for residential properties whose owners remain displaced by the war; complete all reconstruction of property damaged in the 2004 riots; develop and fund a transportation strategy for minorities; and conclude a second mobile phone license tender. The ambassador should then invite the Kosovo Albanian leaders to suggest action items of their own. ¶12. (U) USOP clears this message in its entirely for release to United Nations Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari. GOLDBERG