Serbia signals support for partition of Kosovo

SERBIA:SERBIA GAVE a clear indication yesterday that it favours the de factopartition of Kosovo, and received resounding support from Russia's president-in-waiting.

"Serbia will do everything to implement its jurisdiction and state prerogatives for all loyal citizens in Kosovo - Serbs and non-Albanians," said Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica, reinforcing the declared intention of Serb officials in Belgrade and Kosovo not to recognise the authority of the fledgling state's ethnic-Albanian government.

"There cannot be normalisation of relations with the states that recognised Kosovo independence until they annul their decision," Mr Kostunica added. "Protest rallies will not stop as long as illegal independence is not annulled."

Serbs have vowed to create their own administration in northern Kosovo and hold local elections in May.

Three border posts between Serbia and Kosovo, which declared independence on February 17th, have been attacked by Serb gangs, and offices of the EU mission in Kosovo have been struck by hand grenades in the Serb stronghold of Mitrovica. Kosovo is home to about 1.9 million ethnic Albanians and 100,000 Serbs.

Slobodan Samardzic, Serbia's minister for Kosovo, said on a visit to the new state that Belgrade would seek to guarantee law and order and provide jobs and services "in the areas that it controls, where Serbs live".

"They must enjoy life in the Serbian state as all other citizens of Serbia enjoy that life. Serbia will do everything to achieve that."

In Belgrade, Mr Kostunica met Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, who is poised for a landslide victory in Sunday's election to find a successor to president Vladimir Putin.

"Serbia is a single state whose jurisdiction is stretching through its entire territory," Mr Medvedev said. "We will stick to this as our principle in the future. The actions taken destroy the international security system, the international legal system, which mankind formed more than 100 years ago," Mr Medvedev added, warning that Kosovo's independence "complicated the situation in the region, in southeastern Europe, and impacts on all other regions and countries" with territorial disputes.

"We have made a deal to co-ordinate our efforts to get out of this complicated situation," he said alongside Serb leaders.

Russia has backed Belgrade's attempts to hang onto Kosovo, which was put under UN control in 1999 after Nato bombing ended a brutal Serb crackdown on ethnic-Albanian separatist rebels.

As a vast federation stretching from the Baltic to the Pacific and the Arctic to central Asia, Russia fears some of its own restive regions could follow Kosovo's lead and claim independence in the future.