Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic on Sunday evening walked out on a working dinner at an international meeting in protest of being denied a chance to speak over Kosovo, news from Belgrade reported on Monday.
Jeremic left the dinner which was attended by more than 100 guests at the lake-side resort of Bled in northern Slovenia after he was not allowed to respond to a speech by Martti Ahtisaari, the former UN special envoy on Kosovo.
Ahtisaari presented his recommendations for Kosovo last March, which granted supervised independence to the province with many of the trappings of an independent state, such as national flag and anthem.
The proposals were backed by the United States and many western countries, but were vehemently opposed by Serbia and its ally Russia who holds veto power in the Security Council.
Ahtisaari said a solution for Kosovo should be reached as soon as possible after December 10 when the troika, composed of envoys from the EU, the US and Russia, should report the results of a new round of talks on the province to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.
"The failure to resolve this issue would jeopardize the stability of the western Balkans, and the international community must close this chapter," Ahtisaari said in a speech over the dinner.
The Serbian foreign minister asked for the floor to present his counter argument to Ahtisaari's speech. However, he was not given the chance as he was promised by the host country, Tanjug, Macedonia's official news agency, reported.
Kosovo, Serbia's southern breakaway province, has been run by the UN and NATO since 1999 when NATO troops drove out Serbian forces to stop their attack on Albanian separatists.
Serbia has stated repeatedly that Kosovo is an inalienable part of its territory and vowed to keep in its fold while Kosovo, where 90 percent of the population is Albanians, has said it will accept nothing short of independence.
New talks on the final status of Kosovo, under the auspices of the troika envoys, are going to start later this month in Vienna, but it was widely suspected that the talks would lead nowhere.
Source: Xinhua
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