Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: Exclusive
www.innercitypress.com/unmik1budget041609.html
UNITED NATIONS, April 16 -- In a rare mix at the UN of the work of the Security Council and the Budget Committee, Serbia has put onto the Council's April 16 agenda “the fact that the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo budget proposal for the next financial year provides for extensive cuts.”
In an April 15 letter to Council president Claude Heller of Mexico, not made public until this article and upload, Serbia argues that the proposed budget cuts would jeopardize UNMIK's ability to carry out the work Serbia and Russia say its has under Council Resolution 1244 (1999), and criticizes UN Envoy Lamberto Zannier for failing to sign the laws adopted by the Assembly of Kosovo. Such signing would not, it seems, require money.
Kosovo and its supporters, of course, disagree. Kosovo loudly said that it no longer needs UNMIK. Earlier this week, the Kosovar delegation walked out of a meeting of the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) held in the Montenegrin capital, Podgorica, because it was told that the law required it to be represented by UNMIK, or under the name of UNMIK and not Kosovo. (The Serbian letter refers by name to CEFTA). The incident in Montenegro sparked something of a name-plate war, less gruesome than the renewed reports that the Kosovo Liberation Army took and traded in organs during the war, charges that EULEX now says there is not enough evidence to investigate.
Nothing so messy is on the Council's Thursday agenda. A Western diplomat told a handful of reporters that it involved a budget matter. Inner City Press later asked Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin if this was accurate. No, he said, it is about respect for the Security Council and its resolutions, about respect for international law. Could it also be about the name-plate? And how will the Council deal with a complaint about one of its Mission's budgets? Watch this site.
