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

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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
--------------

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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