Belgrade DMH 151113

LOCAL PRESS

Zarif: Success of the elections of key importance for Serbs in Kosovska Mitrovica (Beta)

A successful outcome of the election process would enable citizens of northern Kosovska Mitrovica to be well represented and their election will to be respected, said UNMIK Head Farid Zarif in talks with Serb political leaders in Kosovska Mitrovica. He emphasized that all the sides should respect the rules of peaceful and democratic conduct, above all in the interest of their own communities. He assessed that the success of the elections was essential for the Serb community, which wants to play a key role in the creation of their own destiny. The elections are an important step towards achieving that goal and the local community should be provided with full authorities, he emphasized.

Dacic: We must not repeat our past mistakes (Beta/Tanjug)

Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic told Kosovska Mitrovica residents that Serbia would never abandon them and that they must not abandon Serbia either and must not repeat the mistakes from the past that have led to their displacement. “Had it not been for Serbia, this would not be a territory today with four big and important Serb municipalities,” Dacic said at the closing conference of the Serbian (Srpska) Civic Initiative, on the eve of the repeated local elections. “You have to understand, and you need to help us in order to help yourselves, so that we can continue helping you back. That is why you need to go to the polls. The turnout does not serve to assist Pristina and Kosovo Prime Minister Hasim Thaqi. Rather, it is the only way the Serbs in Kosovo can have the power that is not recognized only by Belgrade, but also by Pristina and, which is the most important, by the international community as well, as without their recognition we can do nothing. Make your choice in such a way that it is in Serbia’s interests. It is vital for the Serbs to show unity, to forget the differences between the political parties. This is about defending the interests of Serbia, and not on how to betray these interests,” Dacic said, adding that it is necessary to win the elections and then constitute the Union of Serb Municipalities, which means Serb authorities, police and judiciary. “We have but one goal, and that is to win more votes than the Albanian and Bosniak candidates for Mitrovica mayor,” said Dacic. 

Serbian list wins in three northern municipalities (RTS)
The mayors of Zubin Potok, Zvecan and Leposavic were elected in the first round of elections, while the mayors mayors of six Serb municipalities in Kosovo and Metohija south of the Ibar River will be elected in the second round scheduled for 1 December,the Central Electoral Commission (CIK) in Pristina said. CIK Chair Valjdete Daka told a press conference that the candidates of Serbian (Srpska) Civic Initiative secured a first-round win in Zubin Potok, Zvecan and Leposavic. In all six Serb municipalities south of the Ibar River - Gracanica, Strpce, Klokot, Novo Brdo, Ranilug and Partes - one of the two candidates for mayor was from the Serbian list, said Daka. According to the final results in the first round, mayors were elected in a total of 13 municipalities - Decani, Glogovac, Istok, Kacanik, Kosovo Polje, Leposavic, Podujevo, Srbica, Stimlje, Zubin Potok, Zvecan, Mamusa and Djeneral Jankovic - and the second round will take place in the remaining 24 municipalities.

Stevic, Bogdanovic: Protecting the existing and building new institutions through the Union (Radio Serbia, by Mladen Bijelic)

Zvonko Stevic, MP of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), told International Radio Serbia that the Union of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo and Metohija was an opportunity to retain the existing institutions of Serbia in the area and build new ones. An MP of the Democratic Party (DS), Goran Bogdanovic, also called on Serbs in Kosovska Mitrovica to participate in the repeated ballot. According to Stevic, the most important is that the 2014 Draft Budget of Serbia, which the Serbian Government determined and sent to the parliament, represents the continued financing of the local self-government in Kosovo and Metohija. Stevic expects that by the end of the year the Constitutional Law will be adopted, which will transparently show how the Serbian Government and the parliament will finance activities of the local communities of the Serbs in Kosovo. He also believes that with a high turnout in the first round of the elections, the Serb people in Kosovo and Metohija demonstrated that they are aware of the fact that only through active participation in the electoral process can they control their own destiny. He sees no reason why it should not happen again this week at the repeated ballot in the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica and in the second round of mayoral elections.

According to Stevic, with a high turnout in the first round of local elections in Kosovo and Metohija the Serbian people from the area sent three messages to different addresses. The first message was sent to the international community, of which it is required to ensure peace, stability and security in the region, including freedom of movement. Another message says that the Serbian people offered its hand to their Albanian neighbors in an effort to ensure coexistence and management of joint activities, essential to everyday life in local communities. At the same time, a clear message was sent that through the future Union of Serb Municipalities, the Kosovo Serbs want to build a strong relationship with the mother country of Serbia and a loose one with Pristina and Brussels, concluded Zvonko Stevic.

Goran Bogdanovic is convinced that on November 17, the Serbs living south of the River Ibar will turn out to the polls en masse, but he was not sure the Serbs in Kosovska Mitrovica will do the same, regardless of Belgrade’s recent serious campaign. Bogdanovic believes that the announcements that an Albanian could be elected to the leading position in the city are misinformation. He does not believe that this will further motivate the Serbs’ turnout in Kosovska Mitrovica. Despite everything, Bogdanovic calls on Serbs to go to the polls on Sunday and choose their legal representatives, regardless of all the problems that have appeared in the course of electoral activities, for which we ourselves are largely to blame.

Serbia expects the first conference with the EU to be held on 20 December (Politika)

Official Belgrade wants the first intergovernmental conference of Serbia with the EU to be held on 20 December, which is why it is trying to gather as wide support as possible in the EU in order that political talks with Brussels should formally start by the end of this year. The negotiating framework, a document to set the procedure of Serbia’s EU accession talks and considerably influence them is already in the procedure of adoption in EU institutions. Serbian Minister without Portfolio in charge of EU integrations Branko Ruzic and the head of the negotiating team Tanja Miscevic have already presented Serbia’s positions regarding the future negotiating framework on Serbia’s EU accession in London and Berlin. Although Ruzic repeats that is does not matter if the conference will be held in December or in January, Belgrade still hopes that official talks will start this year and, according to experts on the subject, that will mainly depend on the official stand Germany. Minister Ruzic said that, during his recent visit to Berlin, his German collocutors did not point out that the negotiating framework with Serbia, to be harmonized by all the EU member-states, could contain some new prerequisites. However, Berlin still adheres to demand about Belgrade’s consistent attachment to the application of the Brussels agreement. We know that Germany’s stands on some issues are very firm and unchangeable and that Berlin presents its conditions openly, but that does not mean they are against Serbia’s EU integrations. Berlin wants a negotiating framework that will provide the process with certain dynamics and also wants to see a reformed Serbia and the normalization of Belgrade-Pristina relations, said Ruzic. Asked if Serbia is to obtain the support of two key European countries for the negotiating process to start in December, Tanja Miscevic says that Berlin and London have no special requirements, but want to specify further steps in order that neither the normalization of Belgrade-Pristina relations, nor negotiations with the EU, should be undermined. She emphasizes that Serbia does not need the support of an individual state, but the consent of, partnership and good relations with all the 28 EU member-states. The enactment of the negotiating framework is a task of EU countries and Serbia has no influence on that, she emphasized. However, after Berlin and London, Tanja Miscevc and Ruzic went to Paris and then to Rome, in order to present to their EU partners the way talks could be organized in technical terms, according to Belgrade. Whatever the framework of the negotiations may look like and whenever the first inter-governmental conference is held, the technical part of Serbia’s talks with the EU has already begun, with the screening of the negotiating chapters, on the basis of a schedule that has already been organized until mid-2015.

REGIONAL PRESS

Sorensen to open CEFTA week in Sarajevo (Srna)

A two-day gathering dubbed “CEFTA Week” will open on 18 November. The gathering will be opened by the Head of the EU Delegation to B&H Peter Sorensen, B&H Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations Ermina Salkicevic-Dizdarevic and the Secretary General of the Council for Regional Cooperation Goran Svilanovic. This event is one in a series of activities from the Program of the B&H Presidency over the CEFTA agreement, reads the statement by the B&H Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations. The gathering will hold nine sessions with an overview of the implementation of the CEFTA agreement.

Merkel meeting Nimetz attests talks within UN (Dnevnik)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with Matthew Nimetz, the United Nations Special Representative for the name dispute between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia, which attests talks within the UN, Evangelos Venizelos, Greek Foreign Minister, announced the news.
In his words Germany backed the UNSC-supervised name talks and sent a message which Nimetz should interpret well.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Serbia signs co-operation accord with Russia (IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, by Radu Tudor, 13 November 2013)

Serbia signed a military co-operation agreement with Russia in Belgrade on 13 November. Defence Minister Nebojsa Rodic said after the talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, that implementation of the accord will lead to an improvement in the performance and functionality of the Serbian Army.

Three subsequent agreements are under negotiation, one of them covering military-technical co-operation.

Rodic also thanked Shoigu for his support for Serbia during his term as emergency situations minister. In December 2011 the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations organised an aid operation directed at northern Kosovo, with aid despatched in part from the Humanitarian Center that Serbia founded with Russian support in the town of Nis, the largest city in southern Serbia.

Belgrade's Men Win North Kosovo Polls (BIRN, by Edona Peci, 15 November 2013)

The Serbian government-backed list “Srpska” won most votes in three Serb-dominated municipalities in local elections in northern Kosovo.

Candidates of the Serbian government list “Srpska” gained most support from the 7,856 voters who cast ballots in Leposavic, Zvecan and Zubin Potok in local elections on November 3.

The Kosovo Central Election Commission, CEC, published the official results for 37 municipalities on Thursday.

Candidates of “Srpska” will thus become mayor in the three mainly Serbian municipalities despite an aggressive campaign by Serbian hardliners, who called for a boycott of the vote.

Dragan Jablanovic from “Srpska” won 51.48 per cent of 4,322 ballots cast in Leposavic.

In Zubin Potok, its candidate, Stevan Vulovic, won 78.74 per cent of 2,700 votes.

Vucina Jankovic defeated Nebojsa Vlajic from “Srbija, demokratija, pravda" established by Oliver Ivanovic, a former official in the Serbian ministry for Kosovo. Jankovic was elected mayor of Zvecan after winning 57.55 per cent of 834 votes cast.

The mayors are the first to be elected in polls organized by the Kosovo government in the Serb-run north, where Serbia has remained the de facto power since the end of the Kosovo conflict in the late 1990s.

The results do not include information from the northern half of the divided town of Mitrovica, where the results were annulled following attacks on polling stations. A re-vote is due there on Sunday.

The result of the process in the north is considered a key element for implementing the EU-brokered deal on normalizing relations between Kosovo and Serbia.

It is also a pre-condition for the formation of the Association of Serbian Municipalities, the autonomous body foreseen in the deal.

The results for the remaining 34 municipalities do not differ from the preliminary results that the CEC published two days after the elections.

On December 1, there will be a second round of run-off votes in 24 of the 38 municipalities.

The Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, won outright in four municipalities, the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, in three, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo in one; an independent candidate was elected mayor of Han i Elezit, while an ethnic Turkish party won in Mamusha.

Kosovo PM urges Serbs to vote in make-or-break elections

Hashim Thaçi says participation vital to peace deal with Serbia after violence led to aborted poll in ethnically divided Mitrovica.

Kosovo PM urges Serbs to vote in make-or-break elections (The Guardian, 14 November 2013)

Kosovo's prime minister has issued a last-ditch appeal to Kosovan Serbs to vote in critical elections this weekend that are widely seen as a make-or-break moment for the republic.

In an interview with the Guardian, Hashim Thaçi said that the abandonment of polling after attacks in northern Kosovo earlier this month was a result of "pressure, threats and other methods", and added that he would hold Serbia responsible if there was a repeat performance in the re-run vote in North Mitrovica on Sunday.

Thaçi said that a successful vote was vital to a peace deal between Kosovo and Serbia and encouraged ethnic Serbs in the republic to vote. He said the only ones who would lose by participation in the elections were extremists and radical groups in north Kosovo.

Voting was suspended in North Mitrovica on 3 November after masked men burst into three polling stations in the town, which is predominantly ethnically Serbian, firing teargas and destroying ballot boxes. "We know what happened, who did it and why they did it," Thaçi said.

The local elections followed a peace deal brokered in April by the European Union between Serbia and its former province. Under the terms of the agreement, Belgrade will dismantle the parallel systems that deliver a range of services from healthcare to education in north Kosovo in return for greater autonomy for ethnic Serbs across Kosovo.

Many in the north refuse to recognise the Kosovan state, which declared independence in 2008. The highest turnout in the other three Serb municipalities in north Kosovo was just 22%, but Kosovo's electoral commission decided to accept these results and to limit the re-run to the divided town of North Mitrovica.

"If the people were allowed to vote the participation would have been over 25%," Thaçi said. "What we need now is political stability in north [Kosovo] to create legitimate local institutions and investments, and then things will change.

"Kosovo is not endangered by Serb integration. Kosovo is endangered if they do not integrate," he said of Kosovo's 120,000 Serbs.

The Brussels agreement has proved controversial in both Serbia and Kosovo, but Thaçi rejected criticism of it. "How should we handle the situation with Serbia? Should we start the war again? Kill each other? This is the best possible deal for both countries," he said.

Successful implementation is widely seen as essential to Serbia's and Kosovo's EU ambitions. "It is the best solution for Kosovo and Serbia to become EU members, and also the best solution for the region," Thaçi said. "We didn't fight against Serbs: we fought to remove Serbia and its oppression mechanisms in 1999."

The future of the Brussels deal hinges on who comes out to vote on Sunday, said Ilir Deda of the Pristina-based thinktank Kipred. "It all depends on what the northern Serbs want to do. Do they want to kill it by boycotting or do they want to legitimise it by electing a Serb mayor?"

Thaçi's counterpart in Belgrade, Ivica Daèiæ, warned ethnic Serbs in North Mitrovica to vote "unless they want the city to be led by an Albanian".

Daèiæ told Serbian TV that the system of largely autonomous Serb municipalities, agreed with Pristina in Brussels, would break down if Serbs did not participate in the re-run. "If the mayor is Albanian, it will mean that we are not be able to set up the administration, and we will not be in the position to create the community of Serb municipalities, which could lead to conflicts and perhaps even to armed conflicts," he said.

Scars remain from the last war. On Friday, an EU prosecutor indicted 15 former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) fighters on charges of torturing and killing civilians during the 1998-99 conflict with Serbia. Among the accused are Kosovo's ambassador to Albania, Sulejman Selimi, and leading members of Thaçi's governing PDK party, including Sami Lushtaku. Despite being in prison, Lushtaku won the mayoral contest in Skenderaj earlier this month with more than 88% of the vote. "He won because people trust him," Thaçi said.

But Thaçi said that any former KLA members convicted of criminal charges would be expelled from the party. "We had previous examples where people were in judicial proceedings and they were elected as members of parliament. But from the moment when someone is found guilty by a court they will not remain in politics after that."

Bosnian Serbs 'Reconsidering' WW1 Centenary Boycott (BIRN, by Elvira M. Jukic, 15 November 2013)

Austrian ambassador says Bosnian Serb officials may reconsider shunning events in Sarajevo marking the start of WW1 - noting that the Serbs sought assurance they would not be blamed for starting the war.

After the Republika Srpska President, Milorad Dodik, said Bosnia's mainly Serbian entity will not take part in events in Sarajevo marking 100 years from the outbreak of the First World War, Austrian Ambassador Martin Pamer said they may reconsider.

Pamer told the Banja Luka-based Nezavine novine daily on November 14 that after he talked to Dodik, the Bosnian Serb chief may have a change of heart.

“I talked to Dodik, and he expressed readiness to mull participation in the ceremony, a concert by the Vienna Philharmonic,” Pamer said referring to the central event on June 28.

The diplomat said the Bosnian Serbs sought reassurance “that the ceremony is not directed against the RS, Serbia or the Serbs.”

Dodik earlier said the Republika Srpska would likely mark the date separately from Sarajevo, with Serbia, arguing that the planned events in Sarajevo would not contribute to reconciliation among the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Sarajevo is getting ready to mark the centenary of the assassination in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, of the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Bosnia was then part of Austria-Hungary, having been occupied in 1878 and then annexed in 1908. The Archduke's assassination, by a Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Pincip, led directly to the outbreak of war between the Habsburg Empire and Serbia, when then drew in Russia, Germany, France, Britain, and others.

The Austrian Ambassador noted divided views about Princip, with some considering him a terrorist and others a hero.

“There are those who are trying to present him as a murderer and a terrorist and others as a hero,” Pamer said. “I think neither is correct. Legally, he is a murderer, but there is the issue of 'the murderer of a tyrant', when it is justified to murder a tyrant, to free people.”

But he added that the discussion was best left to scientific conferences, which will also be held in Sarajevo in June alongside other cultural events.

“Most serious historians does not even consider... attaching blame for the war on someone,” the ambassador noted.

'We Are Not A Dustbin': Albanians Balk At Reported Chemical Weapons Plan (Radio Free Europe, by Arbana Vidishiqi and Antoine Blua, 14 November 2013)

Albania has done the United States a lot of favors in recent years.

It has agreed to take in freed Guantanamo Bay prisoners and contributed to the U.S. military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan with little protest from society.

But with reports now surfacing that Syria's chemical weapons may be dismantled in their country, Albanians' generosity appears to have reached its limit.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in the capital, Tirana, on November 12, the second rally in less than a week.

Chanting "No To Chemical Weapons," the demonstrators gathered in front of parliament before marching to the U.S. Embassy.

Sazan Guri of the Alliance Against Waste Imports, which organized the protest, stressed that Albanians remain very pro-American and that the demonstration was not against the United States. The goal, instead, was to spread the message that Albania should not be a "dustbin."

"We are against the weapons and not against America. America is our big brother, always in cooperation with this nation and this country," Guri said.

During the 20th century, there has been strong pro-U.S. sentiment in Albania, in particular in recent years after the U.S. intervention in the Kosovo war in the late 1990s and its commitment to Kosovo's statehood.

Popular Opposition

After years of importing hazardous waste from its richer neighbors, the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama banned waste imports in October, weeks after coming to power. The ban followed a two-year grassroots campaign from environmentalists. Earlier this month, Albania's parliament passed legislation allowing for the import of some nonhazardous waste.

Besar Likmeta, a Tirana-based editor for the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, says there is opposition to taking in Syria's chemical weapons from "all strata of society."

"People are worried for their safety. There isn't much information that is coming out of the government. Also there is this feeling that pro-Americanism has been taken for granted and we're kind of saying yes to everything that is being put on our table," Likmeta says.

Likmeta notes that Albania agreed to take in 11 former Guantanamo Bay prisoners and 210 members of an Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO). It also supported Washington in its military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed in October that Syria had destroyed all its declared equipment for the production of chemical weapons ahead of a November 1 deadline.

That represented the first step toward eliminating Syria's arsenal by mid-2014 under a September United Nations Security Council resolution. But how that will be achieved has still not been determined.

After media reports surfaced that the United States had asked Albania to destroy the weapons on its soil, Prime Minister Rama confirmed on November 12 that he had indeed discussed the issue with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Rama stressed, however, that no final decision had been made.

A decision, however, could come as early as November 15, when the OPCW, the global chemical weapons watchdog, was due to discuss plans on eliminating Damascus's arsenal.

The U.S. Embassy in Tirana declined comment on the reports.

But during a visit to the northern city of Shkoder last week, the U.S. ambassador to Tirana, Alexander Arvizu, said NATO-member Albania and "all the responsible international partners" must look for ways to contribute to disposing of Syria's chemical weapons.

"It's incumbent upon all responsible nations, certainly including the United States and Albania in that group, to find timely and effective ways to eliminate the menace that is posed by Syria's chemical-weapons program," Arvizu said.

Albania has recent experience in eliminating chemical weapons. With U.S. technical and financial assistance, Tirana destroyed its own 16-ton arsenal in 2007.

Albania's geographical position on the Adriatic Sea would allow the transportation of the Syrian stockpiles by sea or by air without transiting another country.

Safety Concerns

But there are also concerns about safety.

Much of the hazardous waste from Albania's own destroyed arsenal remains stored in containers at an army base near Tirana.

Likmeta recently visited that facility and was disturbed by what he saw.

"There was nobody to be seen, guarding these 25 containers of chemical waste and hazardous waste which remain from Albania's stockpiles. I was standing and shouting for somebody to hear it, to meet somebody there at the gate of the base, but there was no one to answer," Likmeta said.

Moreover, an attempt to dispose of Albania’s conventional weapons took a tragic turn in 2008, when 26 people were killed and more than 300 wounded in an explosion at a former army barracks outside Tirana where old artillery shells were being dismantled.

Parliamentary speaker Ilir Meta also raised questions about Tirana's ability to dismantle the weapons in a television interview on November 7, saying, "Even other, much bigger and more developed countries do not accept it."

Norway has already rejected the idea of dismantling Syria's arsenal on its soil. Denmark and Sweden say they are prepared to help transport the weapons but not dismantle them.

France and Belgium have also been mentioned in press reports as possible sites for the dismantling of Syrian chemical weapons.

Ian Anthony, the director of the Arms Control and Nonproliferation Program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, says that "both safety and security issues would have to be examined in the specific context of what it is that Albania was being asked to do. If the task that was given and that Albania agrees to accept was broadly comparable to what they've already done, then they have the experience and they have the facilities."

"If they're asked to do something which is of larger scale and a more complicated process, then I think there would be risks unless Albania receives significant assistance from outside parties," Anthony says.

Likewise, Alastair Hay, professor of environmental toxicology at University of Leeds, says Albania won’t be asked to do something that the OPCW doesn't think it is capable of doing.