Serb foreign minister charms Vietnamese students

Mar 25, 2008, 9:54 GMT

Hanoi - Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic Tuesday swayed a roomful of Vietnamese university students towards opposing recognition of Kosovo, the Serbian province which declared independence on February 17.

In a fluidly argued speech and question and answer session with students at Vietnam's official Diplomatic Academy, the 32-year-old, Harvard-educated Jeremic said Kosovo's 'illegal' secession 'sets an exceptionally dangerous precedent for the international system,' and warned it would lead to the proliferation of ethnic strife and border conflicts.

By the end of his talk, most of the students in the room, destined to form the future staff of Vietnam's foreign ministry, appeared to agree with him.

'We all think that the Kosovo issue has attracted too much attention and interference from outsiders,' one young woman said, prefacing her question after Jeremic's speech.

Other students, following Vietnam's official diplomatic line, were more cautious.

'I think Vietnam shouldn't be clear about whether to object or support the independence of Kosovo yet,' said Vu Hong Anh, a senior at the academy. 'Vietnam should wait and see the reactions of other countries.'

Vietnam, which occupies a temporary seat on the UN Security Council, has tread a carefully neutral line on Kosovo, reaffirming its support for Security Council Resolution 1244, which put the province under UN administration in 1999.

Hanoi has traditional friendships with Serbia and Russia, which oppose recognition, but also increasingly close relations with the United States and several European countries that support recognition.

Vietnam also has a history of opposing international interventions in its own affairs, including clashes with a number of restive ethnic minorities in its central highlands.

For Jeremic, Vietnam's reaffirmation of Resolution 1244 counts as support. He said that because the resolution respects Serbia's sovereign borders, and has never been superseded by the Security Council, it renders Kosovo's declaration of independence illegal.

The Serbian foreign minister couched opposition to Kosovan secession in the context of stable, predictable international relations and Serbia's desire to join the European Union. 'Serbia's future is in Europe,' he said.

But Kosovan secession, he argued, would destabilize south-eastern Europe and provide a blueprint for ethnic secessionist movements throughout Africa and the developing world.

Jeremic also recalled former Yugoslav president Josip Tito's support for North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh in 1957, and Yugoslavia's role in securing UN membership for Vietnam in 1977.

'When it counted, when the hardship of sacrifice was upon you, my country delivered,' Jeremic said, asking for Vietnamese support on Kosovo in return.

Jeremic's question and answer session proceeded in a strikingly open atmosphere for Vietnam, where students are usually discouraged from asking probing questions of their teachers, let alone senior officials.

'Our teachers told us to avoid raising sensitive questions at the meeting with the Serbian foreign minister, including those questions related to Kosovo,' said Ly Tuan Minh, a third-year student at the academy.

But that warning fell by the wayside when Jeremic's tightly argued speech treated nothing but Kosovo. The academy's director, Duong Van Quang, repeatedly tried to bring the session to a close, only to have Jeremic invite more questions.

Student Minh himself apparently decided that his teacher's warnings were no longer operative, and asked Jeremic what may have been the most sensitive question of the meeting. How, he asked, did Jeremic feel Serbia's position on Kosovo related to China's position on 'Chinese Taipei', the approved Chinese and Vietnamese term for Taiwan?

Jeremic did not directly address Minh's question.

Serbia's foreign minister met with Vietnamese leaders to promote political and trade relations during his two-day visit.