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Athens News Agency: News in English, 06-05-03Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>CONTENTS
[01] Change in Kosovo borders a 'preamble' to new Balkan catastropheSerbia and Montenegro cannot be forced to recognise an Albanian state within its territory, while a change in the country's borders would be a preamble of a new Balkan catastrophe, Serbia and Montenegro's Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic warned in an interview with the ANA-MPA on Wednesday.Draskovic gave the interview in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, where he is attending a meeting of South East European Cooperation Process (SEECP) member-state foreign ministers that will lead up to an SEECP summit on Thursday. He also stressed that stability in the region will never be achieved unless both Serbia and Kosovo ultimately became part of Europe. "I hope that in the end the Contact Group for Kosovo and the UN Security Council will understand this," he added. Asked about an EU decision to suspend negotiations for closer ties between the EU and Serbia and Montenegro on the grounds that Belgrade had failed to arrest former general Ratko Mladic, who is wanted to stand trial for war crimes in Bosnia, Draskovic stressed that the decision was holding the entire Serb nation "hostage". "The fact that general Ratko Mladic has not been arrested has generated another event; in a paradoxical way, the entire Serb nation has been arrested and its European future is threatened. This means that we must fulfil our obligation toward the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague and this obligation is primarily one of a moral nature," Draskovic said. ANA-MPA Copyright © 2004-2005 All rights reserved. Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article |