K+1 ? FOCUS ON SERBIA?S FUTURE - A/S FRIED IN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BELGRADE 000284

SIPDIS

SIPDIS
DEPT FOR A/S FRIED

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PBTS PGOV PREL SR YI
SUBJECT: K+1 ? FOCUS ON SERBIA?S FUTURE - A/S FRIED IN
BELGRADE MARCH 5 AND 6

ARTICULATING A FUTURE VISION
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1. (C) Dan, you are returning to a Serbia much like the one
you found less than a year ago: uncertainty over
government vision and direction and denial of the Kosovo
reality. The country?s leadership offers very little
perspective for the future to its citizens. The
penultimate phase of Vienna Kosovo talks is now over and --
as predicted -- yielded no substantive results.
Politicians continue to focus on what they don?t want for
what they call 15 percent of Serbia (Kosovo?s territory)
and not on what they plan to achieve in the remaining 85
percent.


2. (C) A month after parliamentary elections, there is no
new coalition government in sight. The sole act of the
newly elected parliament has been to convene briefly to
overwhelmingly denounce the Ahtisaari proposal. Calling
the U.S. the driving force behind the Ahtisaari plan, PM
Kostunica?s DSS Party, along with Radicals and Socialists,
bussed in many of the nearly 20,000 people who demonstrated
on February 27 in front of our Embassy.


3. (C) Unfortunately, all of this is as predicted and will
run its course. Your visit should again focus on the way
ahead for Serbia -- together with us and Europe -- and your
speech at the Belgrade City Hall is just the vehicle to do
so. I firmly believe Serbs want to ?fit? and want to be ?a
more normal country.? In my view, their leaders
misinterpret the people?s understandable lack of jubilation
over the impending loss of Kosovo as an existential
question for the average Serb. It is not. It is, however,
an ideal political football for Serbia?s favorite pastime -
- conspiratorial politics.


4. (C) For Kostunica and other nationalists, the Kosovo
issue provides just the right mix of emotion to feed their
own personal convictions as well as their individual
political goals. In contrast, Tadic?s focus on Serbia?s
Euro-Atlantic vocation lacks strength and emotional appeal
because he too feels he must play the nationalist card in
the end. His nemesis, the DS breakaway Liberal Democratic
Party, is the only political group prepared to concede that
Kosovo is lost and that Serbia has more important things to
work on. But the Liberal Democrats lack impact, partly due
to the personalities of some of their leaders and also
because they are only a small dissenting voice in a
nationalist wilderness.

HOT AIR IN VIENNA
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5. (C) The newly re-empowered GOS negotiators went to
Vienna promising constructive engagement, but instead have
categorically rejected most of Ahtisaari's plan. Their
proposed amendments countered any hints of independence for
the province, and added an unhelpful proposal for a
"Serbian entity" within Kosovo. Both Tadic and Kostunica
continue in unison to vow that Belgrade will never
recognize an independent Kosovo. Tadic?s private
assurances of reasonableness in a K+1 aftermath are of
course absent in public.

NO MOVEMENT ON GOVERNMENT FORMATION
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6. (C) Coalition negotiations have gone nowhere so far. A
cohabitation arrangement between DS (Tadic),DSS
(Kostunica),and G-17 Plus (former Finance Minister Dinkic)
is the inevitable ultimate outcome if a government forms
without renewed elections. Both DS and DSS are claiming
rights to the PM post, which provides the key element of
power in the government. If the two parties are unable to
resolve this dispute by May 15, Tadic will have to call new
elections, which would continue the paralysis of the
government, keep Kostunica's hand on the reins as caretaker
PM, and depress democratic voter turnout in follow-on
elections.


7. (C) Despite the clamor, Kosovo policy plays only a
tangential role in the government talks, as all major
political parties, save the Liberal Democrats, generally
share a common stance on the province. Kostunica, after
briefly floating an aggressively rejectionist Kosovo
platform that threatened ties to most NATO allies in the
event of Kosovo?s independence, has since retreated to the
?old? common position among Serbia?s political parties --
that Serbia rejects independence for Kosovo and expects a
negotiated settlement agreeable to all sides on the basis
of the UN Charter and UNSCR 1244. Kostunica and Tadic have
pinned their hopes on EU disunity on Kosovo and ultimately
a Russian veto in the UNSC.

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YOUR MEETINGS: TADIC
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8. (C) Tadic continues to assure us privately that while he
must take a tough public stand on Kosovo's independence, he
will ultimately react responsibly to such an outcome. That
said, he does not like the Ahtisaari plan and quietly
hopes, just like Kostunica, that the Russians will scuttle
a new UNSCR. You might plant the seed in his head that a
Russian veto in New York would actually be a bad outcome
for Serbia and for Tadic himself, who might then have to
face other diplomatic steps and a far more volatile and
dangerous Kosovo reality.


9. (C) Tadic will tell you that ICTY cooperation will be a
top priority for his government, and that he continues to
firmly support military cooperation, up to and including
NATO membership. He needs to hear that we expect him to
lead a constructive public reaction to a Kosovo status
settlement. You should lay out redlines on expected
reactions to Kosovo?s independence, including the need for
the GoS to be proactive in using its influence to quell
potential flare-ups in northern Kosovo and to refrain from
directly or indirectly encouraging the exodus of Serbs from
Kosovo. You should applaud his proactive work instructing
his Army Chief to liaise with NATO to keep communication
lines open between the Serbian military and KFOR (which he
has done) and encourage more of the same.


10. (C) You should also press him to do more to
operationalize the PfP relationship he lobbied hard for in
advance of the elections, by helping move Serbia?s PfP
Presentation Document forward and by pushing for Serbia to
open its office in NATO HQ by signing a Security Document.
On both counts, his advisors have stalled action, telling a
recent visiting delegation from NATO that nothing should
move before a government is formed.

KOSTUNICA
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11. (C) Kostunica was unprepared and rambling during his
most recent meeting with Frank Wisner, which, along with
his missteps on the initial DSS platform on Kosovo, suggest
he is not sure how to proceed on Kosovo other than to stick
to strict rejectionism. His grasping at straws to try to
intimidate the international community by threatening the
damaging of ties with NATO allies backfired. But fresh off
what he sees as a victory in the ICJ in the Bosnia genocide
ruling, he has now hinted at lawsuits against any country
that recognizes an independent Kosovo. I think you should
rebut his belief that our decisions on Kosovo will mean big
trouble for us. You should make clear to him that Serbia?s
future is in his hands and the hands of other democratic
leaders. The United States and our European partners are
confident in our support for Ahtisaari and a future
settlement. What Serbia does in reaction will have its
greatest interest on Serbia, not on the international
community. It is important that you at least mention the
ICTY issue; he will interpret silence as an indication that
this issue is no longer of any importance to us.

DRASKOVIC
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12. (C) You will also meet with outgoing FM Vuk Draskovic.
While he will have to leave government after a poor showing
in elections, we have encouraged Draskovic -- an engaging
personality who is genuinely pro-American -- to remain a
factor in Serbian politics. You should probe to see how
much he is willing to do to move the Euro-Atlantic agenda
forward in his remaining time at the helm, inter alia by
supporting the movement of the PfP Presentation Document
into the government for consideration.

YOUR SPEECH
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13. (C) Your speech will actually be the centerpiece theme
of your visit. We cannot hammer out often enough
?Possibilities for 21st Century Partnership.? Your remarks
will get wide media coverage and push once again the elite
and a new generation of Serbs to help reorient Serbia away
from introspective nihilism and start looking at a global
partnership role that will contribute to the country?s
success. Ultimately, only Serbs can lead Serbia out of its
self-destructive behavior of the recent decades. But we
can continue to help point them in the right direction.

POLT