Serbia threatened on Thursday to take every means possible to retaliate if Kosovo declares unilateral independence, news from Belgrade reported.
"If someone inflicts injuries on you, then you must respond and hit back and do some damage as well," Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica told reporters.
He said Serbia would do everything to prevent Kosovo from proclaiming unilateral independence. However, he declined to specify what kind of means he would take for retaliation if Kosovo proceeds with its intention of unilateral independence.
The Kosovo Albanian leaders reiterated on Thursday that their demand for independence is non-negotiable.
"We reaffirmed that the independence of Kosovo is non- negotiable, nor is Kosovo's territorial integrity," Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu said in Pristina after he returned from the first round of new Kosovo status talks in Vienna.
It was reported that today's talks, chaired by the troika, composed of three envoys from the United States, the European Union and Russia, ended in Vienna without breaking the stalemate over the Kosovo issue.
Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku vowed after the talk to declare independence if a final push for a diplomatic settlement between now and December 10 doesn't give Kosovo independence.
Kosovo, Serbia's southern breakaway province, has been run by the United Nations since 1999 after 78 days of NATO bombing drove out Serbian forces fighting ethnic Albanian rebels.
Serbia has stated repeatedly that Kosovo is an integral part of its territory and vowed to keep it within its border while Kosovo, where 90 percent of its 2 million population is ethnic Albanians, had said it will settle for nothing short of full independence.
The UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari presented last March his proposals which would grant supervised independence to Kosovo. The plan was backed by the U.S. and many of the western countries, but was vehemently opposed by Serbia and its veto-power ally Russia.
Although the two delegations from Belgrade and Pristina didn't make a breakthrough in Vienna on the fate of Kosovo, they did agree not to partition the province along the ethnic line, as mooted earlier this month in the international community.
Serbian Foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic headed the Serbian delegation to the Vienna talk, said that he had reached agreement with the troika envoys that the two delegations would meet face to face on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly next month in New York.
In Vienna, the two delegations didn't meet directly, only with the troika envoys shuttling between them.
Source: Xinhua
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