“Kosovo solution will be postponed”

LONDON -- Tim Judah says it is only a matter of time before Western diplomats admit Kosovo’s status solution should be postponed.

“According to usually well informed sources, Russia did tentatively float the idea of cooperation over Kosovo with the U.S. in exchange for its backing down over its planned missile shield, to which it objects,” Judah, a leading Balkan commentator, writes in BIRN’s online edition.

“This is believed to have happened in talks with Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. Secretary of State, in Moscow ten days ago. The idea made no headway. Since then the possibility of a compromise being struck over Kosovo has narrowed significantly.”

Judah adds that while some still hope a deal might be struck at the G8 summit in June, similar hopes rose before Condoleezza Rice's trip to Moscow and then again before the ill-fated EU-Russian summit in Samara a week ago.

“Russia now appears to have put itself in a position whereby anything that opened the door to Kosovo's independence would be a humiliation; therefore its interests seem to dictate that it has no choice but to continue to block this,” Judah concludes.