Both the NATO-led force in Kosovo (KFOR) and the EU police mission are there to protect the whole of Kosovo and not only the regions predominantly populated by Albanians, EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said after meeting in Brussels on 25 Februry.
Solana urged all parties to "act responsibly", stressing that "good and solid relations with Belgrade are fundamental" to the EU.
The remarks came as about 150 Serbs attacked the Kosovar police with bottles and stones at the northern border of Kosovo. In the Kosovo town of Mitrovica, which is split between Serbs and Albanians, 2000 Serbian protesters burned EU flags, forcing a retreat of EU staff in the region and sparking fears that the new country could already be split in two.
The Union's High Representative for Kosovo, Peter Feith, however, expressed his opposition to a partition of Kosovo: "It should not end up even with soft partition and the creation of an entity which would be severed in its links with the central government".
A partition "would come as a defeat," the head of the EU police mission Yves de Kermabon told AFP in Brussels.
Meanwhile, Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica reiterated the Serbian position that Kosovo does not exist as a state, higlighting his opposition to a decision by a majority of EU countries to recognise Kosovo's independence (EurActiv 19/02/08)
"There will be no normalisation of relations with those countries that have recognised Kosovo until they annul their decisions," Kostunica said, putting a dampener on EU hopes to get Serbia to sign an EU pre-accession deal shortly (EurActiv 07/02/08).
He found backing among Serbia's traditional Russian ally in the shape of deputy prime minister and likely next president of Russia Dmitry Medvedev, who said that Russia will "stick to" its support for Serbia in opposing Kosovo's independence. He was speaking after meeting Kostunica and Serbian President Boris Tadic in Belgrade.
During the visit, a €6.7 billion deal between Russian gas giant Gazprom and Serbian state enterprise Serbiagas was signed concerning a pipeline from Russia to the EU through Serbian territory, which will "form the foundation of energy stability for all of Europe in the future," Medvedev said.
However, the deal risks angering EU nations and the US, which have been pushing to accelerate the creation of a rival northern pipeline through Ukraine (EurActiv 30/01/08), with which relations are currently on a stronger footing than those with Serbia.
