After Montenegro, Kosovo next stop? 

Montenegro's secession from Serbia is expected to give an impetus to the separatist ambitions in Kosovo, which for almost twenty years has been seeking to break away from Serbia. Similarly, several other "frozen conflicts" may also be affected.

Kosovo had been an autonomous province of Serbia until a decree by Slobodan Milosevic stripped the province of its autonomy in 1989. Since 1999, Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations. 

However, Serbia considers Kosovo the cradle of its medieval statehood and culture and refuses to give up the province.

Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who represent over 90% of the province's two million inhabitants, have been seeking independence from Serbia, while the minority Serbs want Kosovo to remain under Belgrade's control.

Negotiations on Kosovo's status began in February 2006 under UN mediation. The two sides have to date held four rounds of talks. The likely outcome of the negotiations is some form of independence for Kosovo.

According to a World Bank study released in 2005, some 15% of Kosovo's population live in extreme poverty [ie live on 0.93 euro per day]. Only half of the province's households are connected to a central water system, and just 28% to a sewerage system. The rate of unemployment is around 65%.

"Before the end of the year, Kosovo, too, will join Montenegro as a new state and these new countries will be an important factor for stability of the whole region," Kosovo's Prime Minister Agim Ceku has said.

"Montenegrin independence could make things worse for Kosovo Serbs. The outcome of the referendum is a stab in the back for (Kosovo) Serbs," said Kosovo Serb leader Marko Jaksic.

"The concept of keeping Kosovo in Serbia is untenable. Montenegro's independence creates a precedent that is undeniable, and Kosovo's independence is now inevitable," Dukagjin Gorani, an ethnic Albanian analyst, was quoted by Serbianna  as saying.

The US envoy to the international talks on Kosovo, Frank Wisner,  has said that Washington is committed "to achieving final status for Kosovo [...] during this year, 2006."

Meanwhile, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned the international community against pressing for an end-of-the-year deadline for settling the status of Kosovo. 

According to the International Crisis Group document,  Kosovo: The Challenge of Transition (released before the status talks opened): “While agreement between Belgrade and Pristina remains desirable in theory it is extremely unlikely that any Serbian government will voluntarily acquiesce to the kind of independence, conditional or limited though it may be, which is necessary for stable long term solutions. The international community, and in particular the UN Special Envoy charged with resolving the status process, Martti Ahtisaari, must accordingly prepare for the possibility of imposing an independence package for Kosovo, however diplomatically painful that may be in the short term ...”

According to the Kosovo Albanian newspaper Kosova, "The EU has accepted the referendum in Montenegro, even though with some conditions, but regardless of its results, the thing that interests us in Kosova is that the Montenegrins are allowed to hold a referendum, but the Kosovars are not. The international community should not apply two different standards when it comes to countries of the same region."

In a commentary, the Berliner Zeitung argued that the referendum in Montenegro has also brought to the fore the "frozen conflicts" elsewhere on the continent - from Abkhazia to the Basque country. The EU "will have to address these frozen conflicts more urgently again," the paper said, adding that "it is better to allow nations, no matter how small they are, to go their own way."