Kosovo leaders on Wednesday dismissed the notion of Kosovo
partition and vowed to keep the province intact, news reports
reaching Tirana from Pristina said.
"The independence and territorial integrity of Kosovo is
non-negotiable," Kosovo President Fatmir Sedjiu said.
Dutch Foreign Minister Maxim Verhagen said on Tuesday on his
tour to Belgrade and Pristina that his government will accept any
negotiated solution to the Kosovo issue, including a partition of
the province.
"Should both parties be willing to accept a solution that is
both sustainable and possible to implement, the Netherlands
government would find it acceptable," Verhagen was reported as
saying.
Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku also dismissed the very notion
of the province's partition as acceptable.
"We can never approve of partition. It is unacceptable," Ceku
said, "If we start redrawing borders, who knows when and where it
will stop."
Kosovo, Serbia's southern breakaway province, has been run by
the United Nations since 1999 after 78 days of NATO bombing drove
out the Serbian forces fighting Albanian separatists.
Serbia has stated repeatedly that Kosovo is an integral part of
its territory and vowed to keep it, while Kosovo, where 90 percent
of its population are ethnic Albanians, had said it will accept
nothing short of its independence.
A troika of envoys from the United States, the European Union
and Russia will chair a new round of talks on the final status of
Kosovo in Vienna later this month.
(Xinhua News Agency August 30, 2007)
