[Prishtina-E] Kostunica Another Milosevic?!

[Uk Lushi]

This story appeared on http://www.individual.com October 9, 2000
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New president says he is a Serb nationalist and ``profoundly a
democrat''

PARIS (AP) - Vojislav Kostunica, the new president of
Yugoslavia, said in an interview Monday with French television that
he is ``profoundly a democrat'' but also a Serb nationalist _ with
no plans to create a greater Serbia.

``I am profoundly a democrat and at the same time a nationalist,
like the French and the Americans,'' Kostunica said in an interview
with TF1.

``My nationalist feelings are normal,'' he said through a
translator. ``My nationalism is tied to my interest in the future
of my country ... and the misery of my people.''

He said, however, that he ``has no grand idea of a greater
Serbia.''

Kostunica was sworn in as the new president on Saturday evening
after protests finally swept Slobodan Milosevic from office.
Kostunica had won the presidential election.

Kostunica blamed Milosevic, and NATO bombings, for the current
plight of his nation.

``The repression of the authoritarian regime of President
Slobodan Milosevic and after the NATO bombings of last year ... the
country is ... totally destroyed.'' He affirmed that ``today, there
are no democratic institutions.''

``All of these problems,'' he said, ``are important for seeing
the future of Milosevic,'' Kostunica said, without indicating
whether he would work to send his predecessor to the war crimes
tribunal in The Hague, as the United States wants. He has suggested
in the past he would not do so.

Yugoslavia ``is open for the future and a democratic reality,''
the president said.

The European Union's lifting earlier Monday of economic
sanctions has created a ``new situation,'' he said, adding that he
wants to open his country ``for the world and the European Union.''

Asked if he would grant independence to the mainly Albanian
province of Kosovo, Kostunica said no.

``It is impossible,'' he said.

``Our constitution doesn't permit the independence of Kosovo, or
Montenegro,'' he said.

``We want to establish a democratic regime with Montenegro and
Kosovo .... those two elements form (are part of) the country.''

He added that U.N. Resolution 12-44 guarantees the territorial
and political integrity of the country. The Kosovo question
``should be resolved in the framework of this resolution and not by
the wishes of certain'' Albanians, he said.

Applying the U.N. resolution ``will bring peace and stability
... needed in the current situation of chaos.''

Kostunica said that he wants to see the return of 1,000 Albanian
prisoners in Serbia, and said he would pay ``personal attention''
to the ``sensitive question'' of Serb prisoners.


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