The foreign ministers of the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy, who gathered in London primarily for the Afghanistan donor conference, spent yesterday afternoon discussing Kosovo-Metohija, but the expectations of the Western powers were not met.
Circumstances changed after Russian President Vladimir Putin said openly that the solution to Kosovo should have a "universal character" and not be a special case, as implied by Western circles. This was how Putin chose to send a signal to Washington that Russia's consent to Western plans for Kosmet [Kosovo and Metohija] should not be taken for granted. If the West insisted on granting Serbia's southern province independence, then it should consider independence for Nagorni Karabakh - an Armenian region in Azerbaijan, but above all for Transdniestria, a province close to Russia that seeks to break away from Moldova.
If the two regions obtained independence, possibly using the same model as Kosovo-Metohija, Russia would considerably extend its influence in the post-Soviet territory, something the West - specifically the United States - wants to avoid.
Martti Ahtisaari, special envoy of the UN secretary general for talks on the status of Kosovo-Metohija, complained to Kofi Annan about the Russians prior to Putin's message, saying he was not satisfied with their degree of cooperation on the Kosovo status talks, Politika learned in Washington.
Ahtisaari suggested that pressure be applied on Moscow within the Contact Group. There was some talk last week in the diplomatic circles in Washington regarding the Kremlin's plan to address the public prior to the meeting, which the Americans thought would be a routine statement. Consequently, they were extremely surprised by President Putin's remarks. However, the US administration still believes that it will come to terms with the Kremlin, assuring Russia there was no need to fear that possible independence for Kosovo could apply to Chechnya.
"The Russians told us that they want to avoid going against the Serbs," said our source, explaining the circumstances between Washington and Moscow. The former Finnish president could ruin this, as he told US representatives that he had no intention of extending his mandate beyond one year. Washington had planned for the talks to start "softly" to let the Serb side emerge "triumphant" from the talks on decentralization in the province, and then gradually, to move on to talks on status. Ahtisaari's response to the proposal was terse: "No. If I work that way, the talks will draw out for two years and we will accomplish nothing." Washington fears that Ahtisaari could make the question of status irrelevant during the talks on decentralization and thus provoke the Belgrade delegation to walk out before the talks were fully under way.
Putin's statement came as a surprise gift for Belgrade and must have sounded disagreeable to Ahtisaari, most likely causing his plan for speedy negotiations to fall flat. It was a message to the Serb and Albanian parties as well, that real talks would not be conducted in Ahtisaari's office in Vienna, but in Washington, Moscow, London and Berlin - the seats of the most influential members of the Contact Group.
Konstantin Zatulin, director of the Moscow Institute for the Community of Independent States, told a Russian news agency that the United States advocated Kosovo's independence and that everything was being prepared for that outcome.
"The West is not willing to understand Putin's proposal for a universal nature of the Kosovo model. Therefore, before agreeing to recognize Kosovo's independence, Russia will have to link its decision to Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, to Transdniestria and probably Nagorni Karabakh, which the president mentioned. And if a decision on Kosovo's independence is adopted, Russia should apply the Kosovo scenario to conflict regions in post-Soviet territory, regardless of whether the international community recognizes the universal character of that scenario from the point of international law," said Zatulin. He added: "It is clear that if Russia agrees to recognize Kosovo's independence, its relations with Serbia will deteriorate over a longer period. We will have been equated with the West in the eyes of the Serbs. It is up to our leaders to decide whether we are prepared to pay that price," said Zatulin.