ROMANIA: Serbian President Borisi Tadic says Serbia will not go to war over Kosovo

Record ID: 1540328

  • Title: ROMANIA: Serbian President Borisi Tadic says Serbia will not go to war over Kosovo
  • Date: 21st February 2008
  • Summary: MEETING BETWEEN ROMANIAN AND SERBIAN DELEGATIONS BASESCU AND TADIC BEFORE THE PRESS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (Serbian) SERBIAN PRESIDENT BORIS TADIC SAYING: "Serbia will never recognize Kosovo's independence. Every political movement will be in interest of preserving our integrity." JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (Serbian) SERBIAN PRESIDENT BORIS TADIC SAYING: "Serbia will not go to war. We have very painful experience with what happened in Balkans." PHOTOGRAPHER (SOUNDBITE) (Romanian) ROMANIAN PRESIDENT TRAIAN BASESCU SAYING: "Belgrade has to talk to Pristina. It has to find solutions for communication, at least in order to protect Serbs in Kosovo." TWO PRESIDENTS
  • Embargoed: 7th March 2008 15:21
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Romania
  • Country: Romania
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAAHU8NWDLO52FYBB4U6X3GP4DS
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: Serbian President Boris Tadic says Serbia will not go to war over Kosovo, saying it has learnt its lesson from the past.
    Serbian President Boris Tadic said on Thursday (February 21) his country rejects Kosovo's independence but will not go to war over it.
    Kosovo is a highly emotive issue for Serbs who see their southern province as a spiritual heartland.
    A tenth of Serbia's territory, its Albanian majority rejects Serbian rule, pointing to its crackdown on a 1998-99 insurgency that killed some 10,000 people and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes, prompting NATO to act.
    Serbia has said it will never accept its loss and has protested in world forums and recalled envoys from Washington and European states recognising Kosovo, most recently from Italy on Thursday.
    There is little else it can really do, but Russia will ensure Kosovo never gets a U.N. seat.
    The government has said it will not resort to violence to try to regain the province it lost to U.N. control when a NATO air war forced its troops out in 1999.

    "Serbia will not go to war. We have very painful experience with what happened in Balkans," Tadic said at a joint news conference with host Romanian President Traian Basescu.
    Basescu, whose country does not recognise Kosovo, called for a dialogue.
    Romania is the biggest country in the region and has long been trying to carve out a role as a regional mediator before and after it joined the European Union in January 2007.
    Romanian politicians have expressed opposition to granting independence to Serbia's breakaway province and have repeatedly said it may create a dangerous precedent in Europe and elsewhere.
    Radical parties say Kosovo secessionist moves may serve as an example for Romania's ethnic Hungarians, living mostly in the central province of Transylvania, to try to break away.
    The ethnic Hungarian party, UDMR, a member of the centrist government, was the country's only political grouping that has hailed Sunday's independence declaration.
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