Serbian Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu said on Saturday that
Kosovo is going to declare independence from Serbia very shortly,
news reaching here from Skopje reported.
However Sejdiu, who is on a one-day visit to Macedonia, didn't
give a date when the breakaway Serbian southern province would do
so, saying "it will happen very soon".
Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski said his country, where
minority Albanians account for a quarter of the tiny Balkan
country's 2 million population, would not be the first country to
recognize Kosovo's independence.
"Macedonia has no intention to be out of step with the decision
of NATO and EU, and we will follow their common policy,"
Crvenkovski said after talks with Sejdiu.
Although Kosovo is formally within Serbia, the southern province
has been run by the U.N. and NATO since 1999, when a NATO alliance
launched an air war that ended Serbia's military campaign
there.
Serbia insists Kosovo is an integral part of its territory and
that it will never part with it, while Kosovo Albanians who account
for 90 percent of the province's 2 million population claimed they
will accept nothing short of independence.
A critical round of talks on the future status of Kosovo has
ended in yet another stalemate. International mediators overseeing
the talks are due to report to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
by Dec. 10.
(Xinhua News Agency December 2, 2007)
