Italy backs independence for Kosova
By AFP
Published: May 25, 2007
(ROME) - Italy on Thursday voiced support for Kosova's independence from Serbia, urging Belgrade to turn the page on "ideas of the past."
"We support the need to recognise Kosova's independent status, a choice that Serbia may find onerous but that actually represents the finish line in a historic process that is already over," Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said, according to ANSA.
"A country so strong and vital as Serbia (should) turn towards the future, without remaining attached to ideas of the past," he told Albanian business leaders attending an investment conference in the southern Italian port of Bari.
Ethnic Albanians make up around 90 percent of the two million inhabitants of UN-administered Kosova, a southern Serbian province that most Serbs see as their historic heartland.
"Serbia should rethink its role, which will in any case remain crucial, in a region where it is the most populous country and has a long tradition," D'Alema said.
The region "cannot think of reestablishing or defending a federal form which unfortunately was swept away by historical events," he said in reference to the civil wars that broke apart Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
He pointed the finger at "a Serbian ruling class attached to totalitarian and nationalist positions," in a clear allusion to Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
Today's Serbia, however, "is a democratic country with which we want to work to find a solution to this problem," he said.
Belgrade is fiercely opposed to independence for Kosova and has the backing of Moscow, which has threatened to veto any "imposed solution" at the UN Security Council.