Deal with Kosovo Leaves Serbia Split

Serbian President Boris Tadic said a deal on the vexed question of the border between Kosovo and Serbia was the best in the given circumstances.

“A functional compromise solution has been found that can be sustained, which conforms with Serbia's national interests and its constitution,” the President said on Sunday.

On Friday night, after three days of talks in Brussels, Belgrade and Pristina reached a deal on so-called integrated management of border crossings.

Serbia's government embraced the agreeement ahead of a key meeting in Brussels where ministers will take a decision to approve or reject Serbia’s bid for EU candidate status.

The European Commission developed the so-called IBM concept specially for border management in the Western Balkans.

The basic principle is that all relevant authorities and agencies involved in security and trade on both sides of the border work in coordination.

According to Tadic, Serbia had not agreed to allow Kosovo to display state symbols and flags on the frontier, which Serbia insists is not an international frontier but a provincial border. Serbia does not recognise Kosovo's independence, proclaimed in 2008.

Borislav Stefanovic, the head of Serbia's negotiating team with Kosovo, also said the agreement protected Serbia’s national interest and constitution.

“The concept of joint control of the administrative crossings was not imposed on us, as we initiated it, not the EU or Pristina,” he said in Belgrade on Sunday.

However, some Serbs in northern Kosovo have condemned the agreement, saying it is tantamount to Serbian recognition of Kosovo’s independence.

They pledged to continue manning barricades that they erected in July in protest against an attempt by the Kosovo government to take control of the border with Serbia.

"The people in northern Kosovo and Metohija are... disappointed with the agreement between Belgrade and Pristina," Slavisa Ristic, president of the municipality of Zubin Potok, said on Sunday.

He said that Serbs in northern Kosovo would continue to resist the deployment of Kosovo officials at the border crossings of Jarinje and Brnjak, but without violence.

"We will work through peaceful and civil resistance, although some are trying to present it as violence," Ristic said.

The mayor of Zvecan, Krstimir Pantic, was more nuanced, saying that Kosovo Serbs should not take a stance on the agreement until they had examined it closely.

“The heads of the northern Kosovo municipalities, councillors and the Serbian people can make their decision on whether to accept the agreement from Brussels only after they have received the original version of the agreement,” Milovic said on Sunday.

Stefanovic said that the complete text of the agreement would be published on the government’s website.

Meanwhile, Serbia's largest opposition party, the Serbian Progressive Party, SNS, demanded an emergency session of parliamentary where the government would present the agreement and MPs could debate it

“The SNS demands an urgent session of the parliament at which the agreement should be presented and all relevant political parties enabled to voice their stands,” party official Marko Djuric said on Sunday.

International pressure has grown on Serbia in recent days to end months of protests on the part of Serbs in Kosovo. Last week German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated that Germany was minded to veto Serbia's candicacy on account of Belgrade's support for the protesters in Kosovo. Some German peacekeepers in Kosovo have been injured larely in clashes with Kosovo Serbs.