This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 BELGRADE 000097 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL KDEM SR PBTS PGOV PNAT
SUBJECT: Serbia - No Participation in Status Talks 
if Kosovo Independence Presumed 
 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Key Serbian negotiators on Kosovo again 
told Contact Group (CG) representatives that the 
GOS would likely withdraw from status talks if 
independence was "presumed" at the outset.  The 
GOS presented a non-paper detailing their 
objections to CG draft position papers (text 
below), which they assert are based on a 
presumption of independence as the only potential 
outcome of status talks.  On decentralization, the 
GOS strongly denied any Serb interest in Kosovo's 
ethnic partition and emphasized that its new 
proposal on decentralization was far more 
"realistic" than the April 2004 Belgrade plan. 
End Summary. 
 
Kosovo Independence: A Non-Starter for GOS 
------------------------------------------ 
 
¶2.  (U) On January 20, Aleksander Samardzic, 
Vladeta Jankovic, Dusan Batakovic, Leon Kojen, 
leading members of the Serbian negotiating team on 
Kosovo, met with Contact Group representatives. 
Citing three recently circulated internal CG 
papers, the GOS representatives strongly objected 
to formulations in those papers that they believe 
"presume independence" for Kosovo.  They called 
the tone of the papers "disturbing," said they 
were a "non-starter" for Belgrade, and implied 
they were a recipe for Serbian withdraw from final 
status talks.  President Tadic's adviser Kojen was 
especially emphatic, warning that an emphasis on 
independence at the beginning of the process "will 
raise the issue of Serbia's participation in 
talks."  Instead, Kojen argued that the process 
should tackle practical issues -- such as 
decentralization and protection of holy sites -- 
in order to build good will before the "really 
tough" issue of status was raised.  Batakovic said 
that the GOS viewed the Kai Eide's report as a 
minimum starting point and that the CG papers 
represent "steps backward" from that report. 
(Comment:  This is the second time key GOS 
representatives have warned that an a priori 
presumption of independence by the CG would lead 
to a Belgrade boycott of status talks. The first 
instance occurred in December, after the UK 
Ambassador in Belgrade delivered an alleged CG 
demarche ruling out the potential return of Kosovo 
to Serbia.  End Comment) 
 
Serbs Claim More Realistic Approach to 
Decentralization 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
--- 
 
¶3.  (U) Samardzic said that Belgrade's thinking on 
decentralization had become significantly more 
"realistic" in the year and a half since the 2004 
Belgrade Plan was presented.  Having digested 
international and K-Albanian feedback, he and 
Kojen categorically assured us that Belgrade no 
longer sought state-like institutions (parliament, 
executive council) that would unite Serb-majority 
municipalities.  They also categorically denied 
any Belgrade interest in the ethnic partition of 
Kosovo.  They called for "flexible" implementation 
of decentralization;" i.e., the Serbs would have 
no objection either to all municipalities in 
Kosovo enjoying the same competencies or to 
differentiated competencies for Serb-majority 
municipalities (as is the case in Spain, Samardzic 
claimed).  All expressed concern about the recent 
"platform" (septel) released by the Albanians of 
southern Serbia and rejected any linkage between 
that region and any aspect of the Kosovo status 
process. 
 
¶4.  (U)  Samardzic and Kojen expressed concern 
that the draft agenda for the 1/25 Vienna meeting 
was far too ambitious for a one-day session. 
 
 
Text of Non-Paper 
----------------- 
 
    Some Comments on Three Contact Group Draft Non- 
      Papers (Decentralization; Serbian Religious 
           Heritage; International Presence) 
 
General:  The most significant feature of the 
three draft non-papers is their pervasive 
assumption that the question of Kosovo's future 
status can only be resolved in one way by granting 
Kosovo some form of independent statehood. The 
assumption is sometimes quite explicit, as in the 
decentralization non-paper, which starts by 
mentioning "Kosovo's possible independence" (p. 
1), but then quickly moves to talking about "Serb 
communes [i.e., municipalities] on either side of 
the future border and the "cooperation [that] 
would mitigate the reality of the separation by a 
border" (p. 2), the border in question clearly 
being that between Serbia and the future 
independent state of Kosovo. The point is driven 
home by the next sentence which discusses the 
possibility of the "free movement of persons 
between the two countries, or the establishment 
even of a 'mini-Schengen' between them" (p. 2). 
 
Particular formulations such as those just quoted 
might not matter so much if the underlying 
conception of decentralization were genuinely 
neutral on the issue of status. But this is 
unfortunately not the case:  decentralization is 
primarily seen as a way of reconciling the Kosovo 
Serb community to an independent Kosovo and even 
as a prelude to creating an "institutional link" 
between Belgrade and Pristina.1 
 
In the same way, the non-paper on Serbian 
religious heritage poses the whole issue from the 
perspective of an independent Kosovo. For example, 
it explicitly mentions and rejects 
extraterritoriality for some of the Serbian 
Orthodox churches and monasteries on the ground 
that this "would not be in keeping with the idea 
of a multiethnic Kosovo in which all the 
communities would have their place". There might 
instead be "special rights" protecting "Serbian 
religious heritage", but only "within the 
framework of a single State" (p. 2). The single 
state mentioned here could only be a future 
independent Kosovo, as extraterritoriality would 
be unnecessary if it were recognized that the 
churches and monasteries in question are situated, 
as in fact they are, on Serbian (and Serbian- 
Montenegrin) territory. 
 
The non-paper on international presence is 
somewhat less explicit than the other two, but it 
is still noticeable that the question discussed in 
most detail, the powers of a possible 
International Community Representative in Kosovo, 
is posed by comparing the future Kosovo with two 
independent, internationally recognized states, 
Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, that have had 
such a representative for a number of years. Thus, 
the same implication seems to be there: the future 
status of Kosovo will be some form of 
independence. 
 
 
¶1.  It is only if decentralization is seen as 
taking place within an independent Kosovo that it 
makes sense to tie it, as the draft non-paper 
does, with Albanian demands regarding the 
municipalities of Presevo and Bujanovac in central 
Serbia. If the assumption is not made, there is no 
reason to make the connection: for the Albanians 
in Presevo and Bujanovac already exercise all the 
rights that are now denied to the Kosovo Serbs and 
that decentralization is supposed to restore to 
them. 
 
 
From the point of view of Belgrade, the assumption 
in the draft non-papers that the future status of 
Kosovo will be some form of independence rather 
than some kind of broad autonomy within Serbia is 
not only unwelcome, but poses a procedural 
dilemma. The rationale generally offered for 
starting the status process with specific issues 
such as decentralization, Serbian religious 
heritage, etc. is that, unlike the question of 
status itself, these are the issues where it is 
easier to find at least some common ground and 
thus a solution that could be acceptable to both 
Belgrade and Pristina. So, it is often argued, the 
question of status should be postponed until some 
of these important but more specific issues have 
been resolved in a mutually acceptable manner, 
paving the way for the discussion of the more 
difficult status issues.  This in fact seems to be 
the view of both the Special Envoy and the Contact 
Group countries. 
 
If this rationale is accepted, as it is accepted 
by Belgrade at least with respect to the 
decentralization process, it makes little sense to 
approach specific issues by making very definite 
assumptions about status. For this will block the 
talks at the very start, by inevitably raising 
status issues that would then tend to monopolize 
all attention and effectively prevent fruitful 
discussion of matters where there might be some 
common ground. Thus, the dilemma for Belgrade, but 
also for Pristina, the Special Envoy and the 
Contact Group, is whether to start with specific 
issues, looking for some common ground, or to 
address the question of status directly. 
 
Belgrade is prepared for either alternative, but 
if the first one (specific issues) is chosen by 
the Special Envoy, the Contact Group non-papers on 
specific matters can only play a useful role if 
all assumptions about the future status of Kosovo 
are carefully avoided. 
Unless this is done, talks on matters such as 
decentralization or the Serbian religious heritage 
will fail at the very start, and this is an 
outcome that everyone involved has good reason to 
avoid. 
 
Further comments given below on the two draft non- 
papers illustrate Belgrade's approach on the first 
of the two alternatives mentioned above - where 
discussion of specific issues is taken as far as 
it can fruitfully go without involving the 
question of status. 
 
Decentralization:  In line with the position the 
Serbian delegation presented in Vienna in 
September 2005 and with the Eide report, Belgrade 
insists on the following four crucial points, 
mentioned here without further elaboration: (a) 
new, wider competences for the Serb majority 
municipalities; (b) the setting up of new Serb- 
majority municipalities in a number of areas 
(Northern Mitrovica, Central Kosovo, Kosovo 
Pomoravlje region, and Metohija); ( c) the 
establishment of "horizontal links" between such 
Serb-majority municipalities; (d) direct 
institutional links of these Serb-majority 
municipalities with Belgrade.2 
 
Decentralization in this sense is clearly a matter 
of meaningful self government at the local level, 
and has the twin purpose of restoring normal 
living conditions for the Serb community in Kosovo 
and thus also making possible the return of a 
significant number of lDP's from central Serbia. 
It does not exhaust, however, the legitimate 
political demands of the Serb community. There is 
the obvious need for the Kosovo Serbs to have some 
institutional guarantees at the level of central 
government, particularly in the Kosovo parliament. 
A good proposal here would be that, where matters 
of vital interest to the Serb community are 
concerned, no decision can be taken in the Kosovo 
parliament without the majority of the Serb 
representatives voting in its favor. And there is 
also the issue of the overall constitutional 
position of the Serb community in Kosovo, which is 
an aspect of the general status issue, i.e. of the 
constitutional relationship to be negotiated 
between Serbia and its province of Kosovo. Both 
these issues, however, can be addressed 
independently of decentralization, and after some 
commonly agreed solution has been found for that 
issue. 
 
A very surprising feature of the decentralization 
non-paper is the attempt to link decentralization 
with "cross-border inter-communal cooperation" and 
"cross-border relations" generally. This is a new 
departure, and one that has little support in the 
realities of the situation in Kosovo. For example, 
these ideas are completely foreign to the very 
balanced and widely accepted recommendations on 
decentralization contained in the Eide report. 
Given that the cooperation envisaged in the draft 
non-paper would clearly be between communes (i.e., 
municipalities) belonging to two different 
independent states, any attempt to link 
decentralization in Kosovo with such "cross-border 
cooperation" is completely unacceptable to 
Belgrade. 
 
Serbian religious heritage:  Even apart from the 
fact that the draft paper assumes an independent 
Kosovo, the solutions proposed here for the 
protection of the Serbian religious heritage are 
grievously inadequate. The non-paper explicitly 
concentrates on the protection of "buildings and 
material goods", while the Serbian Orthodox Church 
and the Serbian political leadership insist on the 
protection of living religious communities, which 
certainly includes but goes beyond the protection 
of buildings and material goods. Given that more 
than 150 Orthodox churches and monasteries have 
been completely or partly destroyed after 1999, it 
is necessary to protect the most important 
Orthodox churches and monasteries in Albanian- 
majority areas (Pecka patrijarsija, Visoki Decani, 
Bogorodica Ljeviska, Sveti Arhandeli, Devic) both 
by creating "safe zones" around them,3 as 
advocated in the Eide report, and also by linking 
them institutionally with the Serb majority 
municipalities in Kosovo. In other words, these 
churches and monasteries with their "safe zones" 
should belong territorially to the "Serbian 
entity" in Kosovo, together with all the Serb- 
majority municipalities in the province (though it 
should be added, to avoid misunderstanding, that 
the Serbian entity as envisaged here would not be 
a compact, continuous territory). 
 
The draft non-paper envisages the formation of a 
"High Authority" or "supervisory council" that 
would have extensive powers in arbitrating 
disputes involving the Serbian Orthodox Church in 
Kosovo, "could serve as a facilitator for 
international donors", and could even "be 
responsible for the management and maintenance of 
the buildings" (i.e., of the most important 
churches and monasteries). It is important to 
stress that such a proposal is fundamentally 
unacceptable to the Serbian Orthodox Church and 
would in fact constitute a very serious 
infringement of basic religious freedoms. The only 
reasonable view, given the brutal persecution of 
the Orthodox faith in Kosovo after 1999, is that 
the Serbian Orthodox Church in the province should 
in any case retain its present administrative ties 
with the Ministry of Religious Affairs in 
Belgrade. 
 
16 January 2006 
 
3 Such "safe zones" should comprise both the 
estates now owned by those churches and 
monasteries, and the estates they lost due to 
nationalization after 1945 and should now 
rightfully recover through denationalization. 
 
MOORE