KOSOVO: KOSOVO SERB MODERATES FLOAT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PRISTINA 000531

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: 06/19/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: KOSOVO SERB MODERATES FLOAT
DECENTRALIZATION PROPOSAL


Classified By: COM Philip S. Goldberg for reasons 1.4 b/d.


1. (C) SUMMARY. Moderate Kosovo Serb politicians, led by
Oliver Ivanovic, are floating a decentralization plan calling
for seven new Serb-majority municipalities and the
enlargement of an eighth. Briefing Contact Group
representatives on June 16, Ivanovic said his plan differs
from the proposal of the Belgrade negotiating team in not
insisting that every Kosovo Serb live in a Serb-majority
municipality and in not linking contiguous Serb-majority
municipalities to the Serbian boundary. He said the plan
differs from the Pristina proposal in creating an additional
urban municipality (Lipjan) for Kosovo Serbs and in more
overtly targeting resource-rich areas. Finally, he said the
plan differs from both the Belgrade and Pristina plans by not
treating Mitrovica as a particularly special case and by
creating several submunicipal units with limited competencies
in majority-Serb areas that do not meet the population
threshold for formation of municipalities. Ivanovic said his
group will not be putting its proposal in writing for fear of
pre-empting Belgrade negotiators and asked for Contact Group
help in persuading Serbian Prime Minister Kostunica to grant
the proposal a full hearing. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) Kosovo Serb politicians Oliver Ivanovic and Randjel
Nojkic, both of the moderate Serbian List for Kosovo and
Metohija (SLKM),briefed Pristina-based Contact Group reps on
June 16 on a SLKM decentralization proposal calling for seven
new municipalities and the expansion of the existing
Serb-majority municipality of Novo Brdo. Ivanovic
characterized the proposal as a more concrete version of an
idea first floated at the Kosovo Government-sponsored
interethnic conference in Albania last March and said SLKM
has also floated it at UNOSEK. The seven new municipalities
would be created by carving majority-Serb areas in Gracanica,
Lipjan, Raniluk/Gllogoc, Gjilan/Partes, Kllokot/Viti, Obilic,
and Mitrovica.


3. (C) Ivanovic said SLKM is getting active at this time
because the school year is about to end and Kosovo Serb
families are considering whether to register their children
for the next school year in Kosovo or in Serbia. He
characterized the SLKM proposal as an effort to accommodate
Pristina and Belgrade negotiators alike at the UNOSEK talks.
With an eye to Pristina's concerns about the potential
creation of "ethnic corridors" connecting Kosovo Serbs with
Serbia via unbroken Serb-majority municipalities, he said the
proposal "backs off in Kamenice" and breaks up
Belgrade-proposed contiguous Serb-governed area around Gjilan
(by excluding villages that border the Kosovo-Serbia
administrative boundary line and by excluding villages
between Kllokot in Viti/Vitina municipality and Partes in
Gjilan municipality).


4. (C) The proposal also has several features Ivanovic
believes will please Belgrade. SLKM would claim for
Kosovo-Serb majority municipalities the lake in Gracanica (a
main water supply for Pristina),the area around Kosovo's
electricity utility (KEK) in Obilic, and most of the Trepca
mining complex that straddles the Ibar River between north
and south Mitrovica. Ivanovic said the SLKM proposal "goes
beyond" the Belgrade proposal in one particular -- SLKM would
insist on carving up Lipjan municipality to yield two urban
municipalities. He explained that Serbs "are an urban people
and we cannot be expected to become rural just because we are
told to. I cannot understand why Belgrade has not been
asking for this." Finally the proposal favors creation of
several submunicipal units with limited competencies in
majority-Serb areas that do not meet the population threshold
for formation of municipalities.


5. (C) On Mitrovica, Ivanovic said "north Mitrovica has
21,000 people and meets all conditions for becoming a
municipality in its own right. He cited the example of Brcko
in Bosnia as illustrating the dangers of creating special
cases. On questioning, he agreed that some variety of
overarching board should be created between north and south

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Mitrovica but insisted that any such body should be advisory
and not executive.


6. (C) Finally, Ivanovic allowed that the SLKM proposal is
unwieldy and difficult for the international community
(including UNOSEK) to consider because it has not been put in
writing. He claimed that Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav
Kostunica and Kosovo Consultative Council chief Sanda
Raskovic-Ivic were both encouraging when briefed them on the
proposal, although he added that his discussion with
Kostunica was "very brief." He asked that Contact Group
members urge the Serbian prime minister to engage SLKM
regarding the proposal.


7. (C) COMMENT. Although SLKM has no official standing in
the final status process, we find this proposal very much
food for thought and have invited Ivanovic to USOP to further
elaborate it. Kosovo Albanian negotiators will doubtless be
put off by the inclusion of resource-rich areas within
proposed Kosovo Serb-majority municipalities. However, those
resources are Kosovar rather than municipal assets, and
Ivanovic appears to be looking to derive jobs for Kosovo
Serbs from them rather than assert Kosovo Serb ownership over
them. In that context, we credit Ivanovic with an
imagination that could yet prove useful to the final status
process. END COMMENT.


8. (U) U.S. Office Pristina clears this message for release
in its entirety to U.N. Special Envoy for Kosovo Martti
Ahtisaari.
GOLDBERG