MACEDONIA ON KOSOVO STATUS: FOCUS ON DEMARCATION

UNCLAS SKOPJE 000973 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR EUR/SCE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PGOV NATO YI KV MK SUBJECT: MACEDONIA ON KOSOVO STATUS: FOCUS ON DEMARCATION AND NATO MEMBERSHIP REF: A. STATE 165486 ¶B. SKOPJE 953 NO DIVISION OF KOSOVO, EMPHASIS ON DEMARCATION AND NATO MEMBERSHIP ¶1. (SBU) P/E Chief delivered ref A points on Kosovo status to President Crvenkovski's Chief of Staff, Natasha Savova, and to MFA State Counselor Vasko Grkov in separate meetings on December 13. Savova reiterated the GOM's insistence that there be no territorial division of Kosovo, and stressed the need to pursue a status solution in the context of the Ahtisaari Plan. The government would focus in the coming weeks, she said, on ensuring demarcation of the Kosovo-Macedonia border in accordance with the 2001 Skopje-Belgrade agreement (ref B),and on securing a NATO invitation as a security and stability guarantee for Kosovo's southern flank. RECOGNITION: MIDDLE OF THE PACK ¶2. (SBU) The MFA's Grkov agreed with the USG approach. He reiterated the GOM's stance that Macedonia would be neither among the first nor the last to recognize an independent Kosovo, but would end up somewhere in the middle of the group of states recognizing. Macedonia would "need to maintain a balance" between its relations with Belgrade and Pristina, and would want to soften the impact of a Serb response to recognition by delaying a recognition decision as long as feasible. Savova added that, the greater the combined weight of the U.S. and EU states recognizing a CDI, the easier it would be for Macedonia to do the same. Grkov wondered whether Pristina would be willing to move ahead on border demarcation in the absence of Macedonian recognition of an independent Kosovo. MILOVANOVIC