Word: kosovo
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...took 77 days for NATO bombs to drive Serbian forces out of the small Balkan province of Kosovo during the 1999 war. The effort to get Serbs and Kosovars to agree on the implications of that outcome has taken eight years, consumed billions of dollars and entangled a legion of diplomats. It's not working. By Dec. 10, Serb and Albanian negotiators are supposed to sign on to a detailed, internationally vouchsafed plan for a peaceful separation of Kosovo from Serbia. But Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders are on the verge of scuppering the already deadlocked talks by unilaterally declaring...
...wreck has its origins in the 1999 United Nations resolution that ended the Kosovo war. Under pressure from U.S. warplanes, Serbia's then President Slobodan Milosevic agreed to withdraw troops from Kosovo and cede control to the U.N., provided the province legally remained part of Serbia. But that condition has proved unacceptable to ethnic Albanians, who make up 90% of Kosovo's population. A subsequent U.N. plan to grant Kosovo full but "supervised" independence foundered on Russian threats of a veto in the U.N. Security Council. So last summer, the U.S., Russia and the European Union decided to give...
...Kosovo Albanian leaders, who have sought independence since well before the 1999 war, are no less adamant. Late last month Prime Minister Agim Ceku, a former rebel commander, proclaimed that Kosovo is now ready to coordinate a unilateral declaration of independence "with the United States and other countries." If "forced" to do this, he added, he would try to make sure it was not a "surprise...
...unilateral declaration of independence depends on the willingness of other countries to recognize the new nation. In Kosovo's case, the U.S. has already indicated its intention to do so. But the E.U. is divided: Greece, Slovakia and Spain have said they oppose self-declared independence, largely on the grounds that it would encourage separatism among ethnic minorities in their own countries. Differences within the E.U. not only undermine the unity the West has been keen to uphold, but also could complicate the E.U.'s appointed task of helping to administer an independent Kosovo. "It is Europe that would...
Many Serbs hope that their young players' popularity will rub off on Serbia itself. During and after the NATO bombing that ended the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, Serbs became stock villains in Western media: the terrorists plotting mayhem in the first year of the HBO series 24 were Serbs. Now, opines "serbiangirl" in a blog, Ana, Novak and Jelena can show "that the Serbian people are not just terorists [sic] and criminals, we are nice, talented and good people!!!" Just don't call them Croats. With reporting by Dejan Anastasijevic/Belgrade