FM KITAROVIC ON OSCE MADRID MINISTERIAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L ZAGREB 001062 SIPDIS SIPDIS FOR EUR/SCE, EUR/PPD AND EUR/RPM OSD FOR WINTERNITZ E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/01/2017 TAGS: PREL PGOV OSCE SR SW BE HR SUBJECT: FM KITAROVIC ON OSCE MADRID MINISTERIAL Classified By: Rick Holtzapple, POL/ECON, Reasons 1.4 B/D ¶1. (U) Ambassador and PolChief had lunch on December 5 with FM Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic and State Secretary Hido Biscevic, subsequent to their return from the OSCE Ministerial in Madrid, and to follow up on FM Kitarovic's bilateral meeting there with U/S Burns. ¶2. (C) Kitarovic and Biscevic said that after the meeting with U/S Burns, they had a difficult meeting with Serbian FM Vuk Jeremic. Jeremic had indicated that Serbia would respond to a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo with any measure short of military means, including cut-offs of electricity and water. Kitarovic said she also feared Serbia would cut diplomatic relations with any country that recognized Kosovo. Biscevic noted, however, that Jeremic did not mention Bosnia-Herzegovina when discussing Belgrade's response to UDI. He thought Belgrade and the RS were playing a longer game, and that their longer-term interest of knitting the RS as tightly as possible to Serbia would not be served by provoking a crisis now. ¶3. (C) Kitarovic and Biscevic also reported that they had difficult meetings related to the future of the OSCE Mission in Croatia, and were disappointed no decision to close the mission had come out of Madrid. Jeremic told them Serbia would show no flexibility, and claimed to know nothing about what the Croatians describe as the refusal of Serbia's Minister for Refugees to work with Croatia on resolution of outstanding issues under the Sarajevo Process for refugee issues. Swedish FM Bildt and Belgian FM De Gucht were also described as strongly opposed to Mission closure, although Kitarovic said the Belgian FM appeared more interested in the fate of a Belgian banking deal in Split than in any issues directly related to the OSCE mandate. Biscevic said he had spoken with a German national OSCE official Zalbert (phon.) on a possible compromise where the OSCE would remain with a "presence or office" of some seven to ten staff with a mandate to continue war crimes monitoring, but that refugee returns would be covered by a Croatian commitment to report annually on progress toward resolving all outstanding cases. BRADTKE