KOSOVO: COM TO UNITY TEAM MEMBERS: TIME'S UP

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PRISTINA 000664

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

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

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/11/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM UNMIK DPKO YI
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: COM TO UNITY TEAM MEMBERS: TIME'S UP


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


1. (C) Summary: COM met individually with members of
Kosovo's Unity Team (UT) August 9-11 to lay down a direct and
unambiguous marker: the time is now to come to closure with
UN Special Envoy for Kosovo Marti Ahtisaari on the issues of
decentralization and minority rights. COM underscored USG
disappointment in the Kosovar team's performance in the last
round of Vienna technical talks, and emphasized that failure
to close the gap on these issues during the upcoming visit of
Ahtisaari and his experts to Pristina the week of August 22
would endanger the entire settlement process. President
Sejdiu promised the COM intensified leadership, and to that
end convened a special meeting of the Unity Team August 10 to
galvanize their efforts. COM made special interventions with
PDK deputy leader Fatmir Limaj (party president Hashim Thaci
remains on vacation) and ORA leader Veton Surroi, who is
heading up the Unity Team working group on minority rights.
With all UT members, COM cautioned against complacency
regarding the "inevitability" of independence. She warned
that allowing political differences to divide the team and
failure to reach agreement on the Ahtisaari proposals would
make it almost impossible to achieve Contact Group consensus
on the status process and the ultimate way forward. End
summary.


2. (C) COM met August 9-11 with key members of the Kosovar
"Unity Team," including President Fatmir Sejdiu, Prime
Minister Ceku, coordinator Blerim Shala, Presidential Advisor
Skender Hyseni, PDK Deputy Leader Fatmir Limaj (substituting
for the absent Hashim Thaci),and ORA opposition leader Veton
Surroi. In her meeting with Sejdiu August 9, COM stressed
that the results of the discussions during the technical
talks in Vienna on August 7 and 8 had been very disappointing
to the USG. If the Kosovars were hoping for a desultory back
and forth with UNOSEK on the key issues of decentralization
and minority rights, or worse yet believed that they could
hold out on their positions because "independence was
inevitable anyway" they were very much mistaken. She
underscored that there simply was no more time to close the
remaining gaps with UNOSEK, and she warned that the risk of
stubbornly maintaining a distance in the negotiation would be
to undermine Ahtisaari's ability to gain Contact Group and
Security Council consensus for his status proposals. Sejdiu
gravely acknowledged the risk involved, and pledged to exert
renewed leadership to bridge the remaining gaps. (Note: The
President followed up by calling a meeting of the entire
Unity Team August 10; from readouts of the meeting offered by
various members, he exhorted them to intensify their work and
finalize discussions with the UNOSEK team during the upcoming
end of August visit.)


3. (C) COM held two separate meetings with PDK deputy party
leader Fatmir Limaj and ORA president Veton Surroi. COM made
it clear to both that political differences with the
governing LDK-AAK coalition must not get in the way of the
status process and the unity of the Kosovar team. Limaj
noted the difficulty of presenting some of the proposed
decentralization measures to his party constituency, argued
that Kosovo must maintain "functionality," and complained
about LDK efforts to seize credit and profile as a result of
the Vienna negotiation process. COM countered that "selling"
the decentralization and minority rights provisions of the
settlement to the Kosovar Albanian public was a matter of
leadership; it was a very small price to pay to offer the
Serbs guarantees of asymmetric decentralization when in all
likelihood there would be no more than a handful of
universities or hospitals built in Serb municipalities. On
the LDK's assertion of political primacy in the talks, COM
noted that the Unity Team functioned and must continue to
function as an integral whole -- no one individual or party
would gain credit for a successful status outcome, but those
who hindered the process would inevitably be singled out for
obstructionism. Limaj agreed that the onus rested on the
Kosovar team to close the distance with Ahtissari and pledged
to enlist PDK support. Surroi, as well, claimed that he
would work with UNOSEK over the coming week to sharpen the
Unity Team's proposals on minority rights and address UNOSEK

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concerns.


4. (C) Comment: Speaking individually to the members of the
Unity Team, they understand the stakes involved and appear to
be getting their act together to make a productive showing
during UNOSEK's late August trip to Pristina. But clearly
the fragility of the team and the intrusion of political
animosity is beginning to show; it will be our job to keep
them focused on the larger goals of the status process and
continue to caution against allowing ambitions to outweigh
good sense.


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