US, EU Will Back Kosovo Secession

Rice insists independence from Serbia is only option
By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 25, 2007 12:42 PM CDT
US, EU Will Back Kosovo Secession
Debris covers the street where a powerful blast ripped through Kosovo's capital early Monday, Sept. 24, 2007, killing two and injuring eleven others, officials said. The explosion took place in a shopping mall in the city center. Last month police ransacked one of the shops and arrested several ethnic...   (Associated Press)

The Bush administration and the EU will support an independent Kosovo with or without a UN-backed plan. Serbs and Kosovo Albanians will conduct a last round of negotiations on the breakaway country's status before a Dec. 10 deadline. If that deadline passes, Kosovo will declare independence and the US and EU will immediately recognize it, the Times reports.

"There’s going to be an independent Kosovo," Condoleezza Rice said in an interview yesterday. Kosovo, administered as a UN protectorate since the 1999 air raid to end Serbian violence against ethnic Albanians, has pushed for independence. But the Serbian government has refused, and Vladimir Putin has also signaled his reluctance to recognize the breakaway province. (More Serbia stories.)

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