Serbia
Asks UNSC to Condemn “Unilateral Acts” in Kosovo, Portuguese
Compromise's Organ Traffic Explanation?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 28 -- Just before Thursday afternoon's closed door
Security
Council session about the Kosovo Serbian border, Serbia's
Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic spoke to the Press on the steps outside
the Council. He said that the “unilateral actions” of “ethnic
Albanian militants” should be condemned by the Council, given its
responsibilities for peace and security under Resolution 1244.
Inner
City Press
asked Jeremic what he was asking for, an open meeting and a Press
Statement? Jeremic said he had asked to address the Council, that
would be the first step.
But
in fact the
first step is a briefing by outgoing UN Peacekeeping chief Alain Le
Roy in closed door consultations of the Council, which non-Council
members like Serbia cannot attend. Instead, Jeremic is scheduled to
meet with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at 4:30 pm.
Inner
City Press
asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky if Ban had received any request
to meet with the new foreign minister of Kosovo, who has also come to
New York and has indicated will address the Press. Nesirky, at noon,
said that he was aware of no such
request.
Vuk Jeremic previously in UNSC, Western SC snarks not shown
The
closed door
consultations on Serbia, instead of moving directly to an open
meeting, was a compromise suggested by Portugal. On Thursday Balkan
sources told Inner City Press that Portugal's positions on Kosovo are
different from the EU's.
Inner
City Press
asked Portugal's Permanent Representative Cabral about it, and he
surmised that the difference was about organ trafficking, on which
the EU position is that EULEX can investigate it alone, and Portugal
is not sure that EULEX has the capacity (or sufficient jurisdiction)
and is open to some non-EULEX involvement, perhaps by the UN.
In his May
12, 2011 intervention on UNMIK, Cabral said that "as I stated here
last February, the seriousness and relevance of this issue demands that
we follow it closedly and keep an open mind on any future action that
the full pursuit of the investigation may require [including] United
Nations' assistance to an independent investigation."
Could
that be
among the topics Jeremic will raise to Ban Ki-moon? We'l see.
Footnotes: another
compromise being floated is, rather than having an "emergency" open
meeting on Friday, to move up a previously scheduled UNMIK debate into
early August.
Meanwhile,
given the issues behind the border clash, we aim to have more about
Kosovo's tax dispute not only with Serbia, but also Bosnia &
Herzegovina -- or at least part of it. Watch this site.
* * *
As
Closed
Meeting on Serbia Set at UN, Russian Argument Lost
in Translation?
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee, Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
July
27 -- Serbia's letter asking for a emergency meeting of
the UN Security Council on Kosovo's “seizure” of a border
crossing in which at least one policeman was killed caused
controversy in the Council Wednesday morning.
Several
pro-Kosovo
Western
Council members said they didn't have enough
information, and opposed an open meeting at which, they said, Serbian
foreign minister Vuk Jeremic could “use” the incident.
The
compromise,
which Portuguese Permanent Representative Cabral described to Inner
City Press, is to hold a closed door consultation on Thursday
morning, with a briefing by UN Peacekeeping, probably by outgoing
chief Alain Le Roy. (Former UNMIK chief Lamberto Zannier has left to
head the OECD and has not been replaced.)
While
Cabral
said
the closed door session might lead to an open meeting, another
Western delegation said that an open meeting, at least on Thursday,
was “highly unlikely,” expressing concern that the buzz about
Jeremic flying to New York was an attempt to “force” an open
meeting. “He can talk to you, the Press, out here if he want to,”
the Western Council member said.
Western
sources
in
the Security Council went further, saying that in Wednesday's
consultations about whether to have a meeting the Russian
representative “made two mistakes -- first calling it a 'minor
incident' then referring to two states.”
Inner
City
Press
asked the Russian delegation about this; they say that the UN
mistranslated part of the statement from Russian. “Of course we
wouldn't call it two states.” Neither Serbia nor Russia nor the UN
recognizes Kosovo as a state.
The
Deputy
Permanent Representative of a country in the middle -- let's called
them Non Aligned -- told Inner City Press that Russia at first called
it a “small” incident, then corrected that and that nearly all
other delegations agreed it was serious.
The
“two states”
reference was apparently, according to the non aligned source, an
argument that as with the Thailand Cambodia border dispute, any
dispute between two states can trigger a Security Council meeting.
Since the
Western members consider Kosovo a state, how can they
oppose a meeting on this issue? And isn't their argument that an
open meeting could inflame things precisely the argument others make,
cynically they say, about places like Southern Kordofan in Sudan?
Watch this site.
* * *
India,
Brazil
&
S.
Africa Move Toward Joint Communique on Syria, European Members
Grumble at UN
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee,
Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
July
27
-- As the crackdown has intensified in Syria, the
so-called IBSA countries -- India, Brazil and South Africa -- have
been under increasing pressure to “do something about Assad.”
France's
UN
Ambassador
Gerard
Araud, for example, wrote an opinion piece in the
Brazilian press urging Brazil to support the long pending draft
Security Council resolution on Syria circulated by the European
members of the Council.
UN
sources have for
some time been telling Inner City Press that IBSA has been moving
toward taking action.
Now on July 26
several European members
complained to Inner City Press that the action the IBSA countries are
moving toward is
not through the Council but rather a communication, or demarche,
directly to Syria.
This
new
development
is
not unexpected. As the Council's two resolutions on
Libya have been cited after the fact as authorizing not only
airstrikes but even the parachuting of weapons into the Nafusa
mountains by France, opposition to a Syria Council resolution has
grown.
But
India, Brazil
and South Africa, each for its own reasons, wants to take some action
on Syria. Internally, each of the three government faces pressures
from some groups to do more about human rights in Syria, and from
others not to allow “another Libya.”
As
to Brazil, on a
recent Council on Foreign Relations conference call Inner City Press
asked, “what do you make of Brazil's position on Syria being
portrayed as... obstructionist?”
Former
US
Ambassador
to
Brazil Donna Hrinak responded that the
“Brazilian
congress certainly is playing more of a role. Itamaraty at one time
had, you know, virtual monopoly on foreign policy making. Civil
society is a lot more vibrant in Brazil in also speaking out on
foreign policy. You could do quite well by looking at what players
are active in U.S. foreign policy and seeing those same groups
reflected in Brazil.”
How
would an op-ed
by a French diplomat seeking to impact US foreign policy play out?
Brazil's PR Viotti, India's (3d from
left), Araud behind Susan Rice in shades, IBSA letter not shown
CFR's Latin
America director Julia Sweig also replied:
“with
respect to Syria, there was a great deal of conflict with France over
that, but there were a couple of resolutions, I believe, that passed
in the Brazilian congress, which is becoming more and more active in
weighing in on foreign policy, condemning 1973, that resolution [on
Libya], and also a great deal of resistance on the Syria front that I
believe Itamaraty is increasingly sensitive to, as our foreign-policy
operatives are themselves when they conduct foreign policy. So in
foreign policy, domestic politics and voices will impinge.”
Things
are
not
so
different in India and South Africa. So for the three to act together
is not unexpected, despite the grumbling from European members of the
Security Council. Watch this site.
, 
in