Serbia Rejects Ahtisaari's Islamic Plans for Kosovo

February 17, 2007

In 1960, he moved to Pakistan where he headed a sports college. After his tour in Pakistan, Ahtisaari's international career gained impetus. In 1965, he was made the deputy director of international development cooperation at the Finnish Foreign Ministry.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3760/is_199710/ai_n8778977

BELGRADE, Serbia - Serbia is convinced that a U.N. plan granting supervised statehood for the contested Kosovo province stands no chance of approval at the U.N. Security Council where Serb ally Russia holds a veto, a government minister said Saturday. if(window.yzq_d==null)window.yzq_d=new Object(); window.yzq_d['3xwrKdGDJHs-']='&U=13bavo5jn%2fN%3d3xwrKdGDJHs-%2fC%3d575497.10143960.10820197.1442997%2fD%3dLREC%2fB%3d4365391';

Zoran Loncar also blasted the key architect of the plan, chief U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari, as "biased and working in the interest of the (Kosovo) ethnic Albanians" who have sought to split the troubled region from Serbia.

"Not only Russia and China, but a great number of other countries are against taking away 15 percent of territory from a sovereign state and a member state of the United Nations," Loncar said. "It is unthinkable that the Security Council would violate basic principles of the U.N. Charter."

Loncar's comments come only days ahead of Serb-Albanian talks in Vienna, Austria, about Ahtisaari's Kosovo plan. The U.N. envoy has invited the two sides to put forward their complaints about the draft before it is submitted to the U.N. Security Council for a final vote.

The plan envisages internationally supervised self-rule for Kosovo and the trappings of statehood — such as a flag, anthem, army and constitution — while giving the minority Serbs more control over their day-to-day affairs.

The ethnic Albanians in Kosovo have hailed the plan, but also have warned that they want full independence.

Ahtisaari this week has acknowledged that chances of an agreement at the Vienna talks were slim, with the two sides firmly in their positions.

Russia has said it was against any solution that falls short of a compromise. On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was quoted as warning that Kosovo independence would have "the most negative consequences," and that Moscow could block the plan.

Although formally part of Serbia, Kosovo became an international protectorate in 1999, after a NATO bombing forced Belgrade to halt a crackdown against the ethnic Albanian separatists and relinquish control.

Martti Ahtisaari and Pakistan links

In 1960, he moved to Karachi, Pakistan, to lead the YMCA's physical education training establishment, where he was accustomed to a more international environment. As well as the managing of the students' home, the job involved training teachers, which in itself suited him well. He returned to Finland in 1963. The Swedish Agency for International Development was looking for a young, industrious hand for an educational project in Pakistan. Ahtisaari got the job and worked in that country for a few years. It was an experience that changed the future course of his life. http://www.tpk.fi/ahtisaari/eng/persons/iloniemi.html

In 1960, he moved to Pakistan where he headed a sports college. After his tour in Pakistan, Ahtisaari's international career gained impetus. In 1965, he was made the deputy director of international development cooperation at the Finnish Foreign Ministry. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3760/is_199710/ai_n8778977

If he hadn't taken a job as a young man setting up a teacher-training college in Pakistan for a Swedish NGO, Ahtisaari says, he would probably have gone into local politics in Finland.

As it was, he launched himself on an international career that saw him move up the hierarchy of the Finnish government's Third World aid bureaucracy before being named the country's youngest ambassador, at the age of 36, to Tanzania. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0504/p01s04-wogi.html

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