ICJ says Kosovo secession legal, deals blow to Serbia (2nd Roundup)

Jul 22, 2010, 18:25 GMT

The Hague/Belgrade - Kosovo did not violate international law by declaring independence from Serbia in 2008, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said Thursday in The Hague, delivering a massive blow to Belgrade's diplomacy and boosting Pristina.

The court's president, Justice Hisashi Owada, said international law contains no 'prohibition on declarations of independence.'

The non-binding opinion by the ICJ, passed by a majority of 10-4 majority, was a blow to Serbia, which had asked for a ruling through the UN General Assembly.

Belgrade claimed that the 2008 secession violated its territorial sovereignty, guaranteed by international law.

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, who was present at the UN court for the reading of the opinion, said the ICJ ruling will not sway Belgrade.

'We are continuing our policies and will never recognize Kosovo's independence,' Jeremic told reporters outside the ICJ building.

Serbia would not abandon its plan to call for a debate in the assembly and push for a resolution demanding new talks on the status of Kosovo.

Addressing the nation after the ICJ ruling, Serbian President Boris Tadic admitted that it was 'hard for Serbia,' but also said that his country intends to continue the diplomatic fight.

'The court avoided to take a stand on the core issue and has released the debate on that and all political implications in the ... UN,' he said in a televised address.

However, Serbia had hoped for an opinion that would have discouraged more countries from recognizing Kosovo ahead of the UN debate.

So far 69 countries have recognized Kosovo, including the big Western powers - United States, Germany, France and Britain - which are lobbying for more nations to follow suit.

Backed by Russia, which has the power of veto in the UN Security Council, Serbia has fought Kosovo's international ambitions, despite warnings from Washington, Berlin, London and Brussels diplomats that by doing so it took a collision course with the West.

While the ICJ opinion binds no country in relation to Kosovo's statehood, it can develop into a major diplomatic defeat for Serbia's plan to launch a debate in the UN, as it may spark a wave of recognitions from the 123 countries which still have not decided on the step.

That was exactly what Kosovo politicians said, ahead of the ICJ ruling, they were hoping for. Prime Minister Hashim Thaci declared the ruling a 'historic victory' and called on world's nation to recognize Kosovo.

'Serbia got its reply from ICJ. Serbia should accept the independence of Kosovo,' President Fatmir Sejdiu told a press conference in Pristina. 'We hope to see Serbia now uses a different approach towards Kosovo.'

Foreign Minister Skender Hyseni immediately joined the call for new recognitions.

'We now look forward to further recognitions of Kosovo. We call upon states that have delayed recognizing ... Kosovo pending the (ICJ) opinion to move forward towards recognition,' he said in a statement from The Hague.

Moscow however criticized the ruling as 'political' and a 'typical example of double standards,' the Interfax news agency reported, referring to the refusal of the international community to recognize Russian-backed secessionists in Abkhasia, Georgia.

Kosovo, now with a vastly dominant Albanian majority, had once been Serbia's heartland province, the cradle of its statehood and the place where its church was founded in 13th century.

The Albanian-led government of Kosovo declared independence with the acquiescence of the US in February 2008, nine years after NATO ousted Serbia's forces from there to end repression of the population.

The secession also effectively - though not formally, owing to opposition from Russia - ended the UN administration which had governed Kosovo since the end of the war in 1999.

Independence however did not influence the role of the NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, the KFOR, and neither will the ICJ ruling, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

The ICJ ruling 'does not affect KFOR's mandate: KFOR will continue to implement its mandate to maintain a safe and secure environment in an impartial manner throughout Kosovo, for the benefit of all communities, majority and minority alike,' he said in a statement.

NATO has some 10,000 troops in KFOR, which is about one-fifth the size of the forces that maintained peace immediately after the war.

Thousands of Albanians drove around Pristina, waving flags, in celebration, while in the Serb enclave of Mitrovica, in northern Kosovo, several hundred people gathered in a quiet protest against the ICJ ruling.

'We do not accept this. For us this is Serbia,' one visibly shaken man told a B92 television reporter.