KOSOVA'S LEADERS REJECT SERBIAN PROPOSAL FOR ETHNICALLY BASED PARTITION Kosova's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said in Prishtina on March 25 that Belgrade's recent proposal, made to the UN, to partition Kosova along ethnic lines is unacceptable, news agencies reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," March 19 and 25, 2008). He stressed that "Kosova is an independent, sovereign, and democratic country. Belgrade has to understand this." President Fatmir Sejdiu said that Kosova is an "integral territory" and that others have no right to make "senseless" plans to divide it. On March 26, the Belgrade daily "Politika" suggested that the Serbian plan is based on the principle of ethnically based, rather than territorially based, partition. Kosova's Serbs live widely scattered throughout the territory. In northern Mitrovica on March 25, about 3,000 Serbs called on the Serbian Army and police to "enforce" the partition, AP reported. Local Serbian political leader Milan Ivanovic urged Belgrade to appeal to Russia to send troops to "protect" Kosova's Serbs. It is not clear against what he wants protection for the Serbian minority, which enjoys wide-ranging rights under the plan drawn up by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari, on which Kosova's constitution is based (see "RFE/RL Newsline," March 20, 2008). Reuters on March 25 quoted Kosovar Serb political leader Oliver Ivanovic as accusing Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) of "playing politics" with the fate of Kosova's widely scattered Serbs by proposing partition. Ivanovic argued that "in the north it's easy to play the big Serb and score cheap points, but it will cost the Serbs of central Kosovo dearly. The feeling of being abandoned would be intolerable for them, and would inevitably increase the migration of Serbs from Kosovo." PM
SERBIAN LEADER SAYS EU MEMBERSHIP CAN WAIT Serbian Prime Minister Kostunica said in Belgrade on March 24 that Serbs should be prepared to wait "many, many years" for EU membership until the EU recognizes Kosova as part of Serbia, news agencies reported. He added that Norway and Switzerland "cooperate" with the EU but are not members of it. Reuters noted on March 25 that "Norway and Switzerland rank in the world's top 10 richest countries by GDP per capita. Serbia ranks 104th, and Serbs are impatient for the prosperity that EU membership would promote." German regional expert Stefan Wolff told Deutsche Welle on March 25 that "the sooner Serbs realize that Kosovo was lost some 20 years ago when its autonomy was revoked and [President Slobodan] Milosevic and his allies brutally asserted their control, the sooner they can move on with building a viable, democratic, European state." Kostunica's poll ratings in the run-up to the May 11 general elections stand at around 10 percent (see "RFE/RL Balkan Report," February 13 and March 11, 2008). PM
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