KOSOVO: ASSEMBLY FINAL STATUS DEBATE ENDS WITHOUT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PRISTINA 000591

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/31/2017
TAGS: PGOV KJUS KCRM EAID KDEM UNMIK KV
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: ASSEMBLY FINAL STATUS DEBATE ENDS WITHOUT
DELEGATES' ACTION, BUT ANXIETY VISIBLY INCREASING

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


1. (C) SUMMARY: The Kosovo Assembly held a marathon July 31
session to hear an update on final status from Kosovo's Unity
Team (UT) upon the latter's return from Washington. Speaking
of the expected 120-day period of further talks between
Belgrade and Pristina, President Sejdiu said the UT would
participate, but asserted that the Team would not negotiate
over Kosovo's independence or territorial integrity, nor
agree to reopen the Ahtisaari final status package. Sejdiu's
UT colleagues echoed this, but PM Ceku and opposition leader
Surroi continued to distance themselves from the other
members of the team by pushing for deadlines on status.
Despite vitriolic attacks against the UT by Assembly
delegates and general nervousness about what the new talks
might bring, the Assembly reluctantly supported Sejdiu and
his UT colleagues on the way ahead.


2. (C) Summary, cont. Most MPs indicated their continued
strong faith and confidence in the U.S. (and EU, to a lesser
extent) to see them through this process, which helped USOP
in its active effort to quash a variety of resolutions and
declarations contemplated by delegates attempting to define
formal conditions that might tie the UT's hands in
negotiations. At the session's conclusion, the Assembly
merely reconfirmed informally its November 2005 declaration
mandating the Unity Team to secure independence and
sovereignty for Kosovo; delegates also asserted that the
Assembly could be considered "in permanent session" and could
therefore reconvene at any time to deal with status
developments, and they authorized the UT to draft a united
political platform on status. While this debate ended as
well as can be expected, the level of anxiety over the status
process and the desire to intervene -- unhelpfully -- among
Assembly members is clearly on the increase. END SUMMARY.

UT Makes Case for Further Talks, But Still Not Unified


3. (SBU) Kosovo's Unity Team briefed the Kosovo Assembly on
July 31 on final status developments. President Sejdiu led
off the discussion, noting that the UT would participate in
the expected 120-day period of further talks between Belgrade
and Pristina and citing the support for this approach the
team had received from high-level USG officials. Sejdiu
spoke of a seven-point plan on how the UT would conduct
itself during these talks, including a firm assertion that
Kosovo's independence and territorial integrity would not be
compromised, nor would there be agreement to reopen the
Ahtisaari final status package. Sejdiu also made clear that
Kosovo's eventual declaration of independence will be done
only in close coordination with the U.S. and EU.


4. (C) Sejdiu's other UT partners -- Prime Minister Agim
Ceku, Speaker Kole Berisha and opposition leaders Hashim
Thaci and Veton Surroi -- generally supported this line as
well. Thaci was particularly on message, pointing to the
need for close consultation with the international community
by saying the "free world did not leave us alone nine years
ago and we will not leave the free world alone (in its
strategy) now." However, Ceku and Surroi discussed setting
deadlines for the status process (despite COM's early morning
meeting with the PM prior to the session to urge that he
refrain from promulgating this idea to the Assembly). In his
concluding remarks, Ceku said he remained unconvinced that
his idea to set a date for independence was wrong, and argued
again that there should be a fixed timeframe after which
independence would be declared and the international
community invited to recognize. Surroi also referred to his
well-publicized notion that independence must come by
"Christmas" or the Kosovars should declare independence.

Reasons Understood, But UT Attacked


5. (SBU) MPs appeared to accept the UT's arguments,
particularly when they were buttressed by references to U.S.
support, but took the opportunity to vent their frustration

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at the Unity Team. Interventions from many MPs, not just
those considered extremists, centered around the UT's
"failure" to deliver independence and its obvious lack of
unity, as well as allegations that the UT had ventured into
competencies meant for the Assembly -- including decisions on
elections timing, a new constitution, and state symbols.
Some MPs made outright calls for the UT to be dismissed and
the Assembly to take over its duties. Only a handful of MPs,
out of the more than 40 who spoke, praised the UT's work.
The extremists used the occasion to attack Serbia and recite
a litany of "historical" wrongs that Serbia committed against
Albanians in Kosovo and elsewhere. Other common themes in
the interventions of MPs of all stripes were that Pristina
would be asked to make more concessions during the new talks
and open fear that the process would drag on endlessly after
the 120 days.

Nervousness and a Desire to "Do Something"


6. (C) The same frustrations and nervousness over new talks
were evident in polcouns' discusssions with caucus leaders
and influential MPs before the debate and in the Assembly
lobby during breaks in the action. Many MPs were intent on
introducing a resolution or declaration that would
demonstrate the Assembly was an active partner in the
process. It took some time to convince moderate AAK caucus
leader Gjylnaze Syla, for example, not to go forward with a
proposal to establish a parliamentary committee to draft a
declaration of independence. The same was true for AAK
Minister of Trade Bujar Dugolli, who initially wanted to
introduce a resolution, the first point of which was to
demand a deadline on independence. (Comment: The AAK party is
in a particularly parlous state, with multiple fractions --
some egging the Prime Minister on in his insistence on
deadlines -- having emerged in the absence of AAK leader
Ramush Haradinaj, currently on trial in The Hague for war
crimes. The anxious and rushed feeling, however, extended to
other parties as well. End Comment.)

Assembly Asserts Informal Recommendations


7. (C) In the end, after an exhaustive 10-hour debate, the
Assembly concluded its activities, thankfully without passing
a resolution or declaration, largely due to consistent USOP
intervention. Informally, three recommendations were passed
to the UT, read out by PDK caucus leader Jakup Krasniqi,
regarding the new talks: the first reconfirmed the
Assembly's declaration of November 2005 on the Kosovo
people's desire for independence and sovereignty (meant to
give the UT a platform upon its initial creation); the second
established the Assembly "in permanent session" to deal with
any matters arising from the status process; and the third
authorized the UT "to draft a united political platform" on
final status. (Note: "Permanent session," according to the
Assembly's permanent secretary, is not within the body's
regulations, so it is unclear what this means in practice.
End Note.)


8. (C) COMMENT: While this debate ended as well as could be
expected, it is clear that the level of anxiety and the
desire for unhelpful activity with regard to the status
process is increasing among Assembly members. This may well
escalate even further during what promises to be a tense
election season. The U.S. continues to have an outsized
voice in urging restraint and patience -- indeed, the glue
that held the Assembly together during the debate was the
overwhelming trust and confidence of Kosovar leaders in the
United States -- but that influence will wane as we approach
the end of the 120-day engagement period, which now
constitutes the new "deadline", at least in the mind of
Kosovars, for resolution of the status issue. Given the
tenor of this Assembly session, we can expect inordinate
difficulty in holding delegates back from making an
affirmative declaration of some sort as the new negotiations
draw to a close. End comment.
KAIDANOW