Post by tripwire on Mar 3, 2008 23:53:19 GMT -5
UDMR Deputy: Romania against Kosovo independence because it opposes collective rights of minorities
The Magyar MP made this statement during a NATO seminar in Timisoara on Monday. The main topic of the debates was Kosovo’s self proclaimed independence.
published in issue 4133 page 5 at 2008-03-04
Political and military experts, Romanian and foreign experts present in Timisoara, yesterday, looked at both the NATO-EU-UN-OSCE co-operation in the Balkans and at the international tension triggered by Pristina’s self-proclaimed independence.
The ‘NATO in SE Europe – Re-construction and Security in the Balkans’ seminar began in Timisoara yesterday. It is organised by the Institute for Public Policies in partnership with the British Defence and Security Studies Institute (RUSI). As easily anticipated, the statute of Kosovo triggered fierce debates and even polemic among the participants.
‘We will stay in Kosovo even if we do not recognise its independence. KFOR can continue playing a role of binder between Serbs and Albanians’ State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) Victor Micula, National Co-ordinator of the Romanian Task Force 2008 NATO Summit, stressed from the very beginning. The Romanian diplomat pointed out that Romania was not critical of other countries’ positions (those that have recognised the independence of Kosovo – our note), but said that the most important concern of Bucharest right now is the possibility that the Kosovo precedent might be invoked in areas of frozen conflict such as the Republika Srpska, South Osetia, Abkhazia or Transdniester.
But the precedent was indeed invoked here, in Timisoara, by UDMR Deputy Tiberiu Toro. Without bluntly naming the aim of the Union – to obtain the autonomy of Transylvania starting from the Kosovo precedent – he implicitly accused Bucharest of opposing the recognition of independence because …it actually opposes the collective rights of minorities. Referring to the ‘peace treaties that had endured for 400 years’, which make state frontiers no longer coincide with the boundaries of the various nations, the UDMR politician called upon NATO ‘to play the role of a pioneer’ in that respect. In Toro’s view, the acceptance of the new statute of Kosovo equals the green-light for collective rights. ‘NATO can create conditions for such collective rights through a system of territorial and cultural autonomy’ he said.
Along the same line of thinking, the UDMR Deputy brought a second argument – the Ahtissari Plan for Kosovo – showing that ‘this is what the plan provides for – it gives (minorities – our note) collective rights’. Also with reference to the Hungarians in Transylvania, he alluded to the fact that Bucharest was only granting them individual rights – namely the right to integrate as a minority into the majority Romanian society. ‘Every country has this major issue, because there are citizens of one country that happen to belong to a different nation. No comforting solution ahs been yet found to both the majority and the minority in such countries’ Toro said.
The most decisive reply was given by the director of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Jonathan Eyal, who told Toro that, although he was an admirer of the UDMR, an approach like that would eventually become the biggest enemy of the autonomy. Moreover, Eyal warned Toro that NATO had nothing to do with the autonomy of the Hungarian minority living in Romania and that the topic could at most be the subject of future internal debates in Bucharest. The RUSI expert stressed the fact that Romania was a country that had done a lot in the area of minority rights and a country that was by no means isolated within NATO over its stance on Kosovo, as Madrid, for instance, had taken the same position while granting collective rights to its minorities. Another reply also came from the General Consul of Serbia in Timisoara, Dragomir Radenkovici, who noted that regional security was put in danger by the proclamation of the independence of Kosovo,.
Another item on the agenda was the drastic drop of public confidence in the North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation in the recent years, not only in Serbia – bombarded in 1999 and now having to cope with the Kosovo problem – but in the other Balkans states. In the context, Michel Duray, representative of NATO Public Diplomacy Division, admitted to the existence of plenty of unsolved issues in the Balkans, but he also accentuated the fact that the Alliance was trying to bring a contribution to finding solutions to them in keeping with the international law, by permanent consultations with the national authorities of the relevant states.
What's going on with the Rom. govt, not allowing collective right to its minority goups? No wonder the Hungarians want to join Transylvania with Hungary.
The Magyar MP made this statement during a NATO seminar in Timisoara on Monday. The main topic of the debates was Kosovo’s self proclaimed independence.
published in issue 4133 page 5 at 2008-03-04
Political and military experts, Romanian and foreign experts present in Timisoara, yesterday, looked at both the NATO-EU-UN-OSCE co-operation in the Balkans and at the international tension triggered by Pristina’s self-proclaimed independence.
The ‘NATO in SE Europe – Re-construction and Security in the Balkans’ seminar began in Timisoara yesterday. It is organised by the Institute for Public Policies in partnership with the British Defence and Security Studies Institute (RUSI). As easily anticipated, the statute of Kosovo triggered fierce debates and even polemic among the participants.
‘We will stay in Kosovo even if we do not recognise its independence. KFOR can continue playing a role of binder between Serbs and Albanians’ State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) Victor Micula, National Co-ordinator of the Romanian Task Force 2008 NATO Summit, stressed from the very beginning. The Romanian diplomat pointed out that Romania was not critical of other countries’ positions (those that have recognised the independence of Kosovo – our note), but said that the most important concern of Bucharest right now is the possibility that the Kosovo precedent might be invoked in areas of frozen conflict such as the Republika Srpska, South Osetia, Abkhazia or Transdniester.
But the precedent was indeed invoked here, in Timisoara, by UDMR Deputy Tiberiu Toro. Without bluntly naming the aim of the Union – to obtain the autonomy of Transylvania starting from the Kosovo precedent – he implicitly accused Bucharest of opposing the recognition of independence because …it actually opposes the collective rights of minorities. Referring to the ‘peace treaties that had endured for 400 years’, which make state frontiers no longer coincide with the boundaries of the various nations, the UDMR politician called upon NATO ‘to play the role of a pioneer’ in that respect. In Toro’s view, the acceptance of the new statute of Kosovo equals the green-light for collective rights. ‘NATO can create conditions for such collective rights through a system of territorial and cultural autonomy’ he said.
Along the same line of thinking, the UDMR Deputy brought a second argument – the Ahtissari Plan for Kosovo – showing that ‘this is what the plan provides for – it gives (minorities – our note) collective rights’. Also with reference to the Hungarians in Transylvania, he alluded to the fact that Bucharest was only granting them individual rights – namely the right to integrate as a minority into the majority Romanian society. ‘Every country has this major issue, because there are citizens of one country that happen to belong to a different nation. No comforting solution ahs been yet found to both the majority and the minority in such countries’ Toro said.
The most decisive reply was given by the director of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Jonathan Eyal, who told Toro that, although he was an admirer of the UDMR, an approach like that would eventually become the biggest enemy of the autonomy. Moreover, Eyal warned Toro that NATO had nothing to do with the autonomy of the Hungarian minority living in Romania and that the topic could at most be the subject of future internal debates in Bucharest. The RUSI expert stressed the fact that Romania was a country that had done a lot in the area of minority rights and a country that was by no means isolated within NATO over its stance on Kosovo, as Madrid, for instance, had taken the same position while granting collective rights to its minorities. Another reply also came from the General Consul of Serbia in Timisoara, Dragomir Radenkovici, who noted that regional security was put in danger by the proclamation of the independence of Kosovo,.
Another item on the agenda was the drastic drop of public confidence in the North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation in the recent years, not only in Serbia – bombarded in 1999 and now having to cope with the Kosovo problem – but in the other Balkans states. In the context, Michel Duray, representative of NATO Public Diplomacy Division, admitted to the existence of plenty of unsolved issues in the Balkans, but he also accentuated the fact that the Alliance was trying to bring a contribution to finding solutions to them in keeping with the international law, by permanent consultations with the national authorities of the relevant states.
What's going on with the Rom. govt, not allowing collective right to its minority goups? No wonder the Hungarians want to join Transylvania with Hungary.