KOSOVO: SPECIAL ENVOY AHTISAARI HOPES TO BEGIN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PRISTINA 000506

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: 06/13/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: SPECIAL ENVOY AHTISAARI HOPES TO BEGIN
DIRECT TALKS IN JULY


Classified By: COM PHILIP S. GOLDBERG FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D).


1. (C) SUMMARY: UN Special Envoy for Kosovo Status Talks
Martti Ahtisaari told Contact Group (CG) liaison office heads
on June 10 that he expects to brief the UNSC in early July
and then hopes to host the first direct talks between senior
Pristina and Belgrade officials the week of July 17. He
warned Kosovo Albanian leaders against unilateral action,
such as writing a constitution and urged Kosovo Serbs to
rejoin Kosovo institutions. END SUMMARY.


2. (SBU) During a June 9-11 visit to Kosovo, UN Special Envoy
for the Kosovo Status talks Martti Ahtisaari met separately
with President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Agim Ceku,
and with the entire Kosovo Albanian negotiating team,
representatives from the Serbian List for Kosovo and
Metohija, Kosovo women leaders, non-Serb minorities, the
mayors of the three northern majority Serb municipalities,
UNMIK officials, and the international police commissioner.


3. (C) Ahtisaari briefed Contact Group liaison office heads
June 10 on his plans to move forward on resolution of
Kosovo's final status. He plans to go to New York to brief a
closed session of the U.N. Security Council the second week
of July and then host the first direct talks between Pristina
and Belgrade in Vienna during the week of July 17. After
this meeting he would return to New York for another closed
session of the Security Council. He hopes to meet with
Contact Group political directors in Brussels on June 30.


4. (C) Ahtisaari had met with SRSG Jessen-Petersen and Kosovo
political leaders prior to the June 10 meeting with CG
representatives. Ahtisaari said that in response to a
proposal from Prime Minister Agim Ceku to write a
constitution, he had suggested that the Kosovo side instead
draft constitutional principles. Ahtisaari said he told the
Unity Team that Kosovo Albanians must come up with a proposal
that looks good "inside and outside the room." In a meeting
of the Kosovo Albanian negotiating team on June 9, Ceku had
reportedly proposed declaring Kosovo's independence and
calling on individual countries to recognize it. (NOTE: COM
used a dinner with Ceku on June 9 to discourage him strongly
against this idea. END NOTE.). Ahtisaari told reporters on
June 11 after meetings with government officials that any
unilateral action would be counterproductive.


5. (SBU) Ahtisaari told the Kosovo Albanian negotiating team
that a 50-meter set-back for Serbian Orthodox monasteries and
patriarchal sites as proposed by the team in Vienna, was not
sufficient. On decentralization, Ahtisaari told the
negotiating team that he would propose five new
municipalities and repeated that there would be no partition
of Kosovo and no separate Serb entity. He called on Kosovo
Albanians to reach out to Serbs.


6. (C) Ahtisaari told CG representatives he was concerned
about the security situation in northern Kosovo and that he
met with Kosovo Police Commissioner Kai Vittrup to get his
assessment. Vittrup told him that the police will increase
the number of UN CIVPOL officers in northern Mitrovica and
the three majority ethnic Serb municipalities from 500 to

700. Ahtisaari warned against hasty judgments about
responsibility for attacks against ethnic Serbs in the north.
Vittrup also told Ahtisaari UNMIK police has identified 12
communities in which trouble might occur.


7. (SBU) After his meeting with the negotiating team,
Ahtisaari called on all representatives of Serbs in Kosovo to
accept the offer of the Kosovo government to participate in
local institutions to build a multi-ethnic society. In his
meeting with Ahtisaari on June 11, Serbian List for Kosovo
and Metohija (SLKM) leader Oliver Ivanovic said he was still
looking for ways to rejoin the government and Ahtisaari told
CG representatives that this time he was more impressed that
Ivanovic was being sincere. Ahtisaari also invited the SLKM
to attend the talks in Vienna as observers.


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8. (C) COMMENT: Ahtisaari was characteristically blunt in
his briefing to the Contact Group liaison office heads. He
noted that too many people have an "ahistorical" view on how
Kosovo's status should be decided, noting that "one cannot be
even-handed." He asked the Contact Group to lean on
Belgrade. At the same time, he seemed generally satisfied
with Pristina's actions and proposals to date, although he
will clearly look for them to do more on decentralization,
cultural and religious preservation and the status talks
themselves. END COMMENT.
GOLDBERG