Thaci Warns Serbia to Watch Out with Kosovo Partition Ideas

Kosovo`s Prime Minister Hashim Thaci (L) welcomes EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton (R), in Pristina, Kosovo, on 27 May 2011. EPA/BGNES

Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci has snubbed calls by certain factors in Serbia for the partition of the now independent former Serbian province.

"The official authorities in Belgrade must stop with the calls for partition of Kosovo. Otherwise, Prishtina's demands might become much greater than just the recognition of its independence," Thaci commented Thursday after the meeting of Kosovo Cabinet, as cited by BGNES.

He promised the Kosovo citizens that there will be no partition and no redrawing of the borders of the young country, whose ethnic Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia in February 2008.

Thaci's statement was a reaction to a declaration two days ago of Serbian Deputy PM and Interior Minister Ivica Dacic from the Serbian Socialist Party that Kosovo must be partitioned.

Some 100 000-200 000 are estimated to live in the northern corner of Kosovo in Kosovska Mitrovica; they are running parallel authorities and do not recognize the ethnic Albanian Kosovo government.

"If the authorities in Prishtina raise these topics, Belgrade will never be able to close them," Thaci is quoted as saying without really explaining what he means even though his statement sounds like a hint at the aspirations of ethnic Albanians outside Kosovo's borders – most notably the region of Presevo, Bojanovac and Medvedza.

Serbia and Kosovo have started negotiations but only after massive EU pressure; the talks have failed to yield progress even though they have been running for several months now.

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