Subject: Belgrade cannot recognize Kosovo election results: Kostunica
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 14:10:09 PST
From: C-afp@... (AFP)
Organization: Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
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BELGRADE, Oct 29 (AFP) - Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica
said Sunday that Belgrade could not recognize municipal elections
held in Kosovo, in an apparent slight to Western praise of the
province's first post-war vote.
"Yugoslavia cannot recognize the results of local elections and
calls upon international bodies to look toward the full application
of UN Security Resolution 1244," Kostunica said in a statement.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanians peacefully went to the polls in large
numbers on Saturday, to elect 920 councillors in 30 municipalities.
But the province's 100,000-strong Serb minority boycotted the
election, rendering the poll irrelevant in Serb-dominated areas.
The Serbs also feared the polls would strengthen ethnic Albanian
demands for the province's independence from Yugoslavia -- a
campaign that runs contrary to the UN resolution, which states that
Kosovo is an integral part of Yugoslavia.
Kostunica said the elections "contribute to the legalization of
a mono-ethnic society that began to form after the Serbs and other
non-Albanians left Kosovo."
"The Serbs did not participate in these elections and local
institutions will be formed without their elected representatives,"
he added.
Kosovo's UN administrator, Bernard Kouchner, has said he would
appoint unelected Serbs to serve on councils in Serb-dominated
towns.
As Kostunica decried the vote, EU foreign policy chief Javier
Solana hailed "the high level of political maturity shown by the
Kosovars," and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer hailed the
"peaceful and decent" conduct of the vote.
UN Security Council Resolution 1244 called for the UN mission in
Kosovo to rebuild the war-torn province, helping it to establish
self-government and granting it "substantial autonomy".
Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since June
1999, when NATO's 78-day air war ended with Belgrade's troops forced
from the province.