Media in Serbia announces today that the United Kingdom takes over the presidency of the United Nations Security Council in August. Serbian national broadcaster, RTS reports that the Serbian foreign minister confirmed that London could ask for the sessions on Kosovo to be abolished or to be closed to the public.
The media reports that the essence of all demands is to exert pressure on Serbia and the wider international community to accept the thesis that the Kosovo issue has been resolved, says former diplomat Zoran Milivojevic to the RTS.
Kosovo Security Council resolution 1244 from 1999 placed Kosovo under the auspices of the United Nations. Thus, the quarterly reports on the work of UNMIK and the situation in the province are regularly heard in the body. Britain would like the meetings to be less often.
“It is high time that the Security Council convene less on the occasion. We need to focus on real threats to international peace and security, and the situation on Kosovo does not fall in this category ,” said Matthew Rycroft, the then British ambassador to the United Nations in February.
In addition to this, London could have yet another desire – that the UNSC do not deal with Kosovo at all or to be behind closed doors.
“I am sure that they will endeavour to abolish those sessions and turn this into closed consultations without the official Security Council sessions on Kosovo. This is possible to be done in the voting on procedural matters, and here Russia and China cannot put a veto. We are not present here,” says Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic to RTS.
Vladislav Jovanovic, the former ambassador of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) to the UN, says that that question would then start to wane because it will not be constantly in front of the eyes.
Global competition
The Chairman of the UNSC sets the agenda, presides over the meetings and oversees the focus. Whether veto can be avoided from this position?
“According to what the charter says, the veto power is used when deciding on essential issues; it cannot be used in procedural matters. Now the question is whether one political issue par excellence, that is a product of a non-authorized military action against the FRY, can turn into a procedural. Technically and most likely there will be a splinter between those who disagree, Russia and China and a couple of non-permanent ones, and the rest who have a voting majority, “Jovanovic points out.
Less of Kosovo in the SC had its predecessor in the British but also in the insistence of several Western countries on less UNMIK in Kosovo.
“The essence of all demands is to exert pressure on Serbia and the wider international community to accept the thesis that the Kosovo issue has been resolved,” says former diplomat Zoran Milivojevic.
RTS interlocutors place this issue on the terrain of global competition, and the relations of Washington-Moscow.
“It shows that Britain is firmly in the position to include Serbia in its relations with Russia and solve strategic interest by pressuring Serbia, in this case it is the Kosovo issue, and we cannot treat this as a friendly move,” says Milivojevic.
Great Britain is definitely consistent in the policy towards Serbia and the issue of Kosovo. London recognized Kosovo only one day after unilaterally declared independence. He has recently sponsored a resolution on Srebrenica, and recently made a sort of diplomatic precedent and reprimanded Suriname for withdrawing the recognition of Kosovo, RTS reports.
