Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06PRISTINA640
2006-08-02 16:29:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Pristina
Cable title:  

WISNER TO KOSOVARS: SIX WEEKS TO COME TO CLOSURE

Tags:  PGOV PREL KDEM UNMIK YI 
pdf how-to read a cable
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O 021629Z AUG 06
FM USOFFICE PRISTINA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6352
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0785
RHMFISS/CDR USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RUFOADA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
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 000640 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

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

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/02/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: WISNER TO KOSOVARS: SIX WEEKS TO COME TO CLOSURE
WITH AHTISAARI


Classified By: COM TINA S. KAIDANOW FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 PRISTINA 000640

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

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

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/02/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: WISNER TO KOSOVARS: SIX WEEKS TO COME TO CLOSURE
WITH AHTISAARI


Classified By: COM TINA S. KAIDANOW FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D).


1. (C) SUMMARY: In separate meetings on July 27 with
President Fatmir Sejdiu and the entire Kosovo negotiating
team, U.S. Special Representative for the Kosovo Status Talks
Ambassador Frank Wisner stressed the need to stay unified and
to use the next six weeks to bring Kosovar Albanian
negotiating positions on decentralization and cultural
heritage closer to those of UN Special Envoy for Kosovo
Martti Ahtisaari. He also asked the negotiating team
members, as leaders of their respective political parties, to
make sure they and their constituencies do not react to
provocations in the north. He advised Prime Minister Agim
Ceku to start thinking strategically -- specifically, he
asked Ceku to contemplate Kosovo's democratic development
over the next several years and be proactive in addressing
those issues that would pose problems. Wisner reiterated to
Kosovo Serbs, including the mayor of the northern
municipality of Zvecan, that now is the time to engage with
the Kosovo government institutions and that the international
community is looking for realistic solutions for Serbs to
stay on here after final status. Wisner's call to COMKFOR
Valotto for a greater permanent KFOR presence north of the
Ibar met with assertions that KFOR has enough soldiers at a
recently reactivated base in Leposavic, as well as in bases
just over the horizon south of the Ibar, to deal with any
prospect of violence post-status. Non-Serb minority leaders
complained that the Kosovo government does not take their
concerns over minority protections sufficiently into account.
END SUMMARY.


2. (SBU) During his July 26-28 visit to Kosovo, Special
Representative Ambassador Frank Wisner met with COMKFOR
Valotto, Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu, the Kosovo Albanian
negotiating team, leaders from the "Six Plus" non-Serb
minority coalition, representatives from the Serbian List for
Kosovo and Metohija (SLKM),and Zvecan (northern Kosovo)

mayor Dragisa Milovic. Wisner had a private dinner with
Prime Minister Agim Ceku, and visited the return site of
Svinjare, where he saw the progress the Kosovo Protection
Corps (KPC) is making repairing Serb homes and outbuildings
damaged during inter-ethnic violence in March 2004. COM
accompanied Wisner to all of his meetings.

Six Weeks to Come Around to Ahtisaari's Position
-------------- ---


3. (C) Wisner praised Sejdiu and the entire Kosovo
negotiating team for their performance during the July 24
High Level Meeting on Future Status in Vienna with senior
Serbian government officials. He said he particularly
admired Sejdiu's vision of the future of Kosovo and the
collective views of the entire Kosovo delegation. Wisner
stressed that now was the time for the negotiating team to
maintain cohesion. He told Sejdiu privately, and the
negotiating team collectively, that UN Special Envoy for
Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari believes he will be able to finish
drafting a settlement agreement after the next six weeks.
The USG, Wisner said, hopes that during this time the Kosovo
government positions on decentralization and the protection
of Serbian Orthodox religious heritage will come closer to
those of Ahtisaari and his staff. Wisner noted his sense,
gained during meetings July 25 in Belgrade, that both Serbian
Prime Minister Kostunica and President Tadic wanted to finish
discussions on decentralization so that they could show the
Serb electorate they cared about the plight of Kosovo's Serb
community. Wisner assured first Sejdiu and then the entire
Unity Team that the USG agreed that Belgrade should be able
to assist Kosovo Serbs, but that the U.S. and the Contact
Group would resist any attempt by Belgrade to carve the Serb
community out of Kosovo.


4. (C) Wisner asked Sejdiu to lead a unified negotiating team
to the conclusion of negotiations and to maintain political
discipline in the face of provocations by Kosovo Serbs north
of the Ibar. Wisner advised Sejdiu to give the USG and the
Contact Group the opportunity to act on behalf of the Kosovo

PRISTINA 00000640 002 OF 004


government in the face of provocative actions north of the
Ibar River. (NOTE: The unity of the negotiating team was
tested not more than one hour after these morning meetings,
when opposition members of the Kosovo Assembly from Hashim
Thaci's Democratic Party of Kosovo and Veton Surroi's Reform
Party Ora refused to take their seats in the assembly to hear
a report from Sejdiu on the results of the Vienna meeting.
Opposition members told us they boycotted the session because
Sejdiu had failed to obtain "clearance" from other
negotiating team members for the presentation. END NOTE.).


5. (C) In his subsequent meeting with the entire negotiating
team, Wisner built on many of the points he made with Sejdiu.
He asked the negotiating team to find common ground with
Ahtisaari on the size of municipalities and the competencies
(particularly the selection of police chiefs, Serbian
language curriculum in primary and secondary schools, medical
care and infrastructure) to be transferred to the new
municipalities. He added that as political leaders in their
own right, it is important for negotiating team members to
keep their discipline despite provocations from Kosovo Serbs
and Belgrade. He again stressed that the Kosovo Albanians
should let the international community take the lead in
responding to these provocations.

Wisner to PM Ceku: Take the Long-Term View
--------------


6. (C) Over dinner at the COM's residence with PM Ceku and
his two primary political advisors, Wisner asked Ceku to
begin thinking strategically about Kosovo's long-term
democratic and economic development, and to consider what
could go wrong after Kosovo's status is determined. Ceku
noted that his greatest concern is that huge expectations
after status for jobs and economic development will not be
fulfilled, leaving people bitter and disenchanted with the
government. Wisner also asked Ceku to think about what type
of provocation Belgrade and Kosovo Serbs might try in the
north to effect some sort of soft partition. Ceku drew on
his military experience in Croatia to observe that Serbs
might start their partition drive with small-scale action --
closing roads or making political declarations -- and later
build to more significant activity, depending on the degree
of support from Serbia. At Ceku's suggestion, Wisner agreed
that it might be wise if Ahtisaari or his team visited
Pristina in August "to meet with the deciders" -- i.e., to
try and wrap up a deal on decentralization and cultural
heritage away from the glare of the spotlight in Vienna.

Non-Serb Minorities Anxious Prior to Settlement
-------------- --


7. (SBU) Meeting with representatives of the Bosniak, Roma
and Turkish communities, Wisner told them that Kosovo had
crossed an important threshold at the July 24 meeting in
Vienna, because it was the first time that elected leaders of
Kosovo and Serbia met and talked to each other, frankly and
respectfully. Minister of Health Sadik Idrizi, an ethnic
Bosniak who attended the meeting in Vienna as well as the
previous meetings on decentralization also held there, noted
that he did not feel that the positions of non-Serb
minorities are given enough support and added that these
communities feel as though their interests will be left aside
as part of the final settlement. (NOTE: The negotiating team
has always had at least one member of the non-Serb minorities
on its team to talks in Vienna. END NOTE.) Specifically,
their concerns were focused beyond the settlement and on the
construct of an eventual constitutional framework for Kosovo
-- minorities, Idrizi and the others said, would seek
specific mention in the new constitution in order to
safeguard their rights.

Tough Love for Kosovo's Serbs
--------------


8. (C) Wisner,s message to the Kosovo Serbs was clear: get
yourselves involved in the game in the very near future or

PRISTINA 00000640 003 OF 004


you will not have any cards to play. He noted pointedly to
SLKM (Serb List for Kosovo and Metohija) reps Oliver Ivanovic
and Randjel Nojkic that "there is a very limited amount of
time -- six weeks -- in which Martti Ahtisaari will come to a
conclusion. If anyone has an opinion that would help him
come to that conclusion, this is your last opportunity.8
Oliver Ivanovic was equally frank with Wisner, quizzing him
on Wisner's meetings in Belgrade and admitting that &your
impressions are often better understood to us than messages
coming from Belgrade.8


9. (C) Ivanovic,s primary interest centered on the
solidarity of the Contact Group (CG) to resist partition.
Wisner responded that the CG statement after the July 24
Vienna status meeting had been supported by all members,
including Russia, and said he did not see that changing.
Discussing possible scenarios in northern Kosovo after the
status settlement was announced, Ivanovic was clear that
&partition would be bad for the north.8 Wisner concurred,
saying that any Serbian support, tacit or otherwise, for
either a declaration of partition or a locally-based
insurgency would have the effect of creating long-term damage
to U.S. (and Western) relations with Serbia.

Northern Mayor Guarded on Serbs Remaining in Kosovo
-------------- --------------


10. (C) Wisner later met with Dragisa Milovic, the mayor of
the northern majority Serb municipality of Zvecan. (NOTE:
Though Milovic himself is not the most difficult of the three
northern mayors, the Zvecan municipal assembly was the first
to declare in early June that it would cease cooperation with
Kosovo's Provisional Institutions of Self Government. END
NOTE.) Speaking frankly, Wisner told Milovic that the USG
believes deeply that the Kosovo of the future, regardless of
the outcome of final status talks, must be a home for Serbs,
Albanians and other ethnic groups. He added that it was the
desire of the international community to have Kosovo's status
determined by the end of this year, and as with his other
interlocutors, told Milovic that in the next six weeks,
critical work would be undertaken to come to an agreement on
decentralization and church properties and that the
international community is looking for realistic solutions
for Serbs to stay on here after final status.


11. (SBU) Milovic responded that an independent Kosovo would
be unacceptable to Kosovo's Serbs and that an independent
Kosovo would be inescapably monoethnic. He added firmly that
no Kosovo Serb would send his/her children to a school at
which the curriculum was developed by Pristina, and no Serb
family would use an Albanian hospital. That said, Milovic
was careful not to assert that Serbs would inevitably leave
Kosovo post-status, concluding that -- in his personal
opinion -- if Serbs were allowed to manage their own local
affairs, a final status agreement along the lines envisioned
by Wisner (giving Serbs dual citizenship, protecting Church
properties and giving individual municipalities broader
powers over education, law enforcement and medical care)
might be acceptable as a basis for co-existence.

Wisner Wants Larger KFOR Footprint in the North
-------------- --


12. (C) Wisner met early in the day with COMKFOR Giuseppe
Valotto and KFOR Chief of Staff (COS) Brigadier General
Albert Bryant (U.S.) and stressed the need for a visible and
permanent presence of KFOR troops in the north. Valotto
assured Wisner that since May 1 there are more KFOR troops
both stationed at Camp Nothing Hill in the northernmost
municipality of Leposavic (with one company currently
present, another scheduled to arrive mid-August, and capacity
for a third by September, thus a full battalion strength),as
well as increased patrols and heightened activity in the
north by French and Danish KFOR troops based south of the
Ibar River. Bryant noted that before May 1, KFOR troops in
the north performed highway traffic patrols and random
vehicle searches, but that they have now increased patrols

PRISTINA 00000640 004 OF 004


and heightened interaction with villagers. Wisner again
urged that the KFOR troops have as visible a profile as
possible, and emphasized the importance of building up
presence before the settlement, in order to serve as a
deterrent for provocative Serb and Albanian behavior in the
immediate aftermath of the status announcement.


13. (U) U.S. Office Pristina clears this cable for release in
its entirety to U.N. Special Envoy for Kosovo Martti
Ahtisaari.
KAIDANOW