Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06PRISTINA457
2006-05-26 15:32:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Pristina
Cable title:  

AMBASSADOR WISNER TELLS KOSOVO ALBANIANS THEIR

Tags:  PGOV PREL KDEM UNMIK YI 
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O 261532Z MAY 06
FM USOFFICE PRISTINA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6155
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0700
RHMFISS/CDR USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
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RHFMISS/AFSOUTH NAPLES IT
RHMFISS/CDR TF FALCON
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RUEPGEA/CDR650THMIGP SHAPE BE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC
RUFOANA/USNIC PRISTINA SR
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 PRISTINA 000457 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE, AND EUR/SSA, NSC FOR BRAUN,
USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/23/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR WISNER TELLS KOSOVO ALBANIANS THEIR
WORK IS JUST BEGINNING

REF: (A) PRISTINA 437 (B) BELGRADE 817

Classified By: CDA Lynn Gurian for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 PRISTINA 000457

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE, AND EUR/SSA, NSC FOR BRAUN,
USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/23/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR WISNER TELLS KOSOVO ALBANIANS THEIR
WORK IS JUST BEGINNING

REF: (A) PRISTINA 437 (B) BELGRADE 817

Classified By: CDA Lynn Gurian for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) SUMMARY. During a May 21-23 visit to Kosovo, Special
Representative Frank Wisner starkly disabused Kosovo Albanian
leaders of any notion that Kosovo independence can be
considered a foregone conclusion. In plain-speaking
meetings, Ambassador Wisner told the president, prime
minister, and opposition leaders individually and
collectively that their final status negotiating team has to
perform better in Vienna and in the new shuttle phase of
discussions on decentralization. To expressions of concern
that international community resolve to determine Kosovo's
final status in 2006 may be weakening, Ambassador Wisner
offered assurances that the USG remains committed to
concluding the process this year. He said the USG sees three
keys to realizing that goal, all held by the Kosovo Albanian
leaders -- enhanced flexibility and generosity in the talks
themselves, renewed commitment to implementing the Standards
for Kosovo program, and continued efforts at interethnic
reconciliation. Ambassador Wisner and UNMIK principals
agreed that a recent KFOR pullback from Kosovo's north is
regrettable and complicates efforts to engage the Kosovo Serb
population there. END SUMMARY.



2. (C) Ambassador Frank Wisner, The Secretary's Special
Representative for Kosovo Final Status Talks, visited Kosovo
May 21-23. In Pristina, Ambassador Wisner met separately
with President Fatmir Sejdiu, Prime Minister Agim Ceku,
opposition leader Hashim Thaci and COM KFOR Commander General
Guiseppe Valotto. He met collectively with the Kosovo
Albanian final status negotiating team (Sejdiu, Ceku, Thaci,
Sejdiu senior advisor Skender Hyseni, opposition leader Veton
Surroi, and team coordinator Blerim Shala). Deputy Prime
Minister/Local Government Minister Lutfi Haziri and
opposition leader Ylber Hysa joined Ambassador Wisner at a

COM-hosted dinner. The ambassador also met in Pristina with
COMKFOR Giuseppe Valotto, Principal Deputy SRSG Steve Schook,
Mitrovica area UNMIK representative (and former FSO) Jerry
Gallucci, Kosovo Serb leaders Oliver Ivanovic, Goran
Bogdanovic, and Randjel Nojkic, and non-Serb minority leaders
Sadik Idrizi, Mahir Yagcilar, Dzezair Murati, and Haxhi
Mergja. He visited Kosovo Serb returnees as well as Albanian
and Serb community leaders in the village of Bablak, south of
Pristina. Finally he visited USKFOR Camp Bondsteel where he
met with Commanding General Darren Owens and Romanian
military officer Stefan Iovanescu. COM participated in all
meetings and discussions.

Wisner to Selected Kosovo Albanian Leaders: You Aren't Home
Free
--------------
--------------


3. (C) Ambassador Wisner straightforwardly laid out his
primary message for Kosovo Albanian leaders in a private
dinner discussion with Prime Minister Ceku, Deputy Prime
Minister Haziri, and opposition figure (and cultural heritage
Vienna talks delegation leader) Ylber Hysa. Wisner said,
"Your team didn't do very well" in the most recent meetings
on decentralization with UN Deputy Special Envoy Albert
Rohan. "You got bogged down on details of municipalities and
read from a script rather than engage." The ambassador made
clear that this kind of performance would not get Kosovo to
the final status outcome Pristina negotiators want, saying,
"The train may have left the station, but could fail to reach
the destination called independence." He said the USG wants
to see not only an improved performance in Vienna but also a
renewed Provisional Institutions of Self-Government (PISG)
commitment to implementing the "Standards for Kosovo" program
on the Kosovo ground.


4. (C) The Kosovo Albanian leaders absorbed these messages.
Haziri, who led the Pristina delegations to three of the four
Vienna sessions on decentralization, reacted a bit

PRISTINA 00000457 002 OF 004


defensively, claiming that Pristina's proposal would leave 80
percent of Kosovo Serbs living in Serb-majority
municipalities and that the Belgrade proposal included
"strange" elements that would create municipalities without
inhabitants, leave 54 percent of Kosovo's territory
(including most resource-rich areas) under Kosovo Serb
control, and create "ethnic corridors" to Serbia in much the
same way late Serbian Prime Minister Djindjic had proposed
three years ago. Ceku alleged that Serbian President
Kostinica is aiming to create a Serb "entity" in Kosovo using
ethnically-based decentralization and broad patriarchal
territorial carve outs as tools. In urging a more flexible
and generous approach in Vienna, Wisner assured the Kosovo
Albanian leaders that the USG would not allow Serbia to
control Kosovo territory under a municipal guise or to
control Kosovo's natural resources. Wisner reassured the
Kosovo Albanian leaders that the USG would resist in the
strongest way any functional or territorial carve-out for
Serbia.


5. (C) Ambassador Wisner repeatedly urged the Kosovo Albanian
leaders to know their "red lines" delineating truly
unacceptable proposals and to share them with the USG and the
team of United Nations Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari. Ceku
immediately replied that he and his colleagues share two
overriding fears -- that the international community
(especially the U.S.) was beginning to talk about a delay
that would carry the talks into 2007 and that some corners of
the international community were again contemplating
"conditional" independence for Kosovo. He said the Pristina
team could be much more flexible in the negotiations if the
international community issued a clear signal on
independence. Wisner replied, "I can't give you that -- we
need a partnership to get to the end," to which Ceku said
that Pristina negotiators could be more flexible in Vienna,
even in the face of rising public anxiety in Kosovo, if they
came to the negotiating table confident that the talks were
on track for conclusion in 2006. Wisner assured him that the
USG "is absolutely determined to stick with the process we
have in place and determined to conclude the process in
2006."

Wisner to Broader Kosovo Albanian Leadership: Things Will Get
Even Tougher
--------------


6. (C) Ambassador Wisner opened his meeting with the
collected Kosovo Albanian final status negotiating team by
praising the ongoing minority outreach efforts of team
members, especially President Sejdiu and Prime Minister Ceku,
saying, "I know these efforts are tough, that not all Kosovo
Albanians approve of forming friendships with Serbs." Wisner
especially praised Sejdiu's Easter visit to Decani monastery
and visits to Serb enclaves in Peja/Pec and Decan/i
municipalities and encouraged Sejdiu to communicate to his
Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) mayors to do the same as
examples of "humane leadership" (NOTE: The LDK holds the
mayorship of 19 of Kosovo,s 30 municipalities. END NOTE.).


7. (C) Wisner then renewed his call for flexibility in the
negotiations and for "laying your cards on the table." He
said, "there are two reasons for not holding back: the more
you are forward-leaning, the more the UN will be able to put
together a final proposal in keeping with your goals; and the
more you hold back, the more room you create for Belgrade to
maneuver." Referring to a Government of Serbia letter to
Contact Group ministers suggesting significant changes in the
format of the status talks (ref B),Ambassador Wisner said
that we are seeing the first public signs that Serbian
officials are becoming uneasy with the negotiations because
"it must be increasingly obvious to Belgrade where the
negotiations will end." He said the USG "expects (the talks)
to end in independence in 2006, but the outcome is not
inevitable -- it will take work."


8. (C) Prime Minister Ceku appreciated Wisner's reiteration
of the 2006 goal for final status determination, especially

PRISTINA 00000457 003 OF 004


in the face of what he sees as Belgrade's emerging blocking
strategy. Blerim Shala said the Pristina negotiators are
fully prepared to be flexible on decentralization,
particularly on the basis of Ahtisaari's criteria for
creation of new municipalities which he listed as
"sustainability, functionality, feasibility, and
rationality." Ceku said the PISG would likewise attempt to
exhibit greater flexibility regarding Standards
implementation, especially by accepting as fully as possible
the Contact Group's proposed 13 priority actions. Wisner
said "moral support" from Kosovo Albanian leaders is needed
over the next months for doing "everything Kosovo,s limited
financial means allow you to do, to give us the tools we need
to work with." He then listed illustrative action items:
resolving property issues; creating a public bus system for
Kosovo,s ethnic Serbs to feel connected across municipal
boundaries; passing important legislation (on religious
freedom, preservation of cultural heritage, and language
use); concluding financial audit of PISG officials; creating
an anti-corruption commission; and setting up public,
transparent bidding on construction projects. Acknowledging
that the next round of talks will focus on economic issues,
Sejdiu asked for help in making available international
financial institution data regarding Kosovo.

Thaci: Staking Out The Fringe
--------------


9. (C) In an incoherent but mercifully brief private meeting
with Ambassador Wisner, opposition leader Hashim Thaci
inadvertently gave evidence of the internal challenges faced
by leaders of the Kosovo Albanian negotiating team. Alleging
that he remains on the team "for the sake of Kosovo and the
international community," Thaci said his steadfastness "puts
my life in jeopardy." The U.S., he said, should not want the
"yes" men currently in authority to create weak and corrupt
structures which will present a security risk for Kosovo post
final status. Ambassador Wisner implored Thaci to focus on
occupying a constructive place on the negotiating team, to
appeal to the mayors of his political party to continue
multi-ethnic outreach in their municipalities, and to
concentrate on those domestic issues which could become
problematic because "the international community is watching
and deciding whether or not Kosovo is equipped to assume its
own sovereignty."

Kosovo Serb Leaders Would Like to Lead
--------------


10. (C) Serbian List for Kosovo and Metohija (SLKM) leaders
Goran Bogdanovic, Randjel Nojkic and Oliver Ivanovic told
Ambassador Wisner that Belgrade should recognize
decentralization as a crucial mechanism for keeping Kosovo
Serbs in Kosovo instead of seeing it as a bargaining tool.
Ivanovic said the SLKM will soon send its own proposal on
decentralization to Belgrade and, if there is no response,
will forward it to Ahtisaari, UNMIK, and to Wisner,s office.
Bogdanovic and Ivanovic described the SLKM proposal as
maximizing the number of Kosovo Serbs living in Serb-majority
municipalities and transferring to municipalities a greater
number of governing competencies, including social affairs,
primary health and education, public utilities, land
ownership/property administration and local police and
courts, as well as some influence over privatizations.

Internationals Concerned About Northern Kosovo
-------------- --------------


11. (C) Several interlocutors expressed concern about recent
events in northern Kosovo. PDSRSG Steve Schook (formerly
COMKFOR chief of staff) acknowledged that a French KFOR
withdrawal of fixed checkpoints from the area north of the
Ibar River greatly concerns him, especially as final status
talks progress and the Serb majority in northern Kosovo
likely becomes increasingly agitated over prospects of an
independent Kosovo. COMKFOR Giuseppe Valotto later told
Wisner he is aware of the potential problems created by the

PRISTINA 00000457 004 OF 004


French pull-back and has plans to raise KFOR's profile in the
north.


12. (C) Schook and Ceku, in separate meetings, both said the
PISG would ideally be increasing outreach efforts in the
north as the talks progressed -- perhaps channeling funds
thru UNMIK, which is a generally more accceptable funding
source than the PISG for northern Kosovo Serbs. Schook and
UNMIK representative for northern Kosovo Jerry Gallucci
agreed with Ambassador Wisner that such UNMIK and PISG
outreach to northern Kosovo Serbs, complemented by
international community assistance programs, is essential to
building pragmatic links across the ethnic divide roughly
delineated by the Ibar. All contacts, though, were likewise
aware of a need to avoid exacerbating that divide by funding
programs that could inadvertently discourage displaced Serbs
in the north from returning to their homes elsewhere in
Kosovo as circumstances otherwise warrant.


13. (SBU) Ambassador Wisner cleared on this message. USOP
clears this message in its entirety for release to Special
Envoy Martti Ahtisaari.
GURIAN