U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns at SEECP Summit
ZAGREB, CROATIA
MAY 10-11, 2007
[introduced by Prime Minister Ivo Sanader]
Prime Minister thank you very much for that warm welcome, and thank you for your expert organization of this conference.
Your country is a great friend of my own country and President Bush has asked me to come to represent our government here to salute you and to salute the countries around the table for all the progress that you have made. We believe that this is an important moment for Southeast Europe and it is also a positive moment because your future is in cooperation with NATO and, of course, with the European Union. The last three American Presidents who have held office, President Bush, and President Clinton, and now President George W. Bush, have all articulated the same strategic objective for Europe - that it be whole and free and at peace. And we all know that it's the countries of Southeast Europe who need to complete this ambition for the continent and for the world. After the wars of the 1990s, now is the time for peace, especially in Southeastern Europe.
So we congratulate all of you who have led the Stability Pact and all of the countries that have led this organization, especially the Greek government that did so much last year under Prime Minister Karamanlis' leadership to lead it. We congratulate Dr. Busek for his expert leadership, and now you make the transition to a Regional Cooperation Council. This is very positive. My country supports integration and cooperation. We will continue to support the enlargement of NATO. President Bush has said that he will very strongly support Croatia for membership in NATO in 2008 and we very much also want to support the other candidate countries if they can complete the reform process and merit the support of all the NATO countries.
Of course, we are also mindful of the dangers to peace in this region, and that is why we are watching very carefully the situation today in Belgrade. The recent election of a new Speaker of the Serb Parliament from the country's Milosevic era has clarified a sobering truth - one set of political parties in Serbia promotes a return to an ugly and destructive past for that great country. And the parties who oppose this dark vision are listening to the mandate of the majority of the Serb people, good people, who have voted for peace, and who have voted decisively for a future in Europe and a good partnership with my country, the United States. But regrettably, such opposing visions are incompatible in a joint government. The United States denounces the Radical party as the party of the past that produced the wars and the war criminals of the 1990s. And should the Radicals return to power, it will do grievous damage to Serbia's reputation in the United States.
Of course, we want to hope for a more positive outcome. We are friends to the Serb people, we support democracy in Serbia and we hope very much to continue to have a good and constructive relationship with the Serb government. Of course, all states in the region must comply with the obligations of the International War Crimes Tribunal, and all states have a responsibility for the past. And so we do call on the Serb government to honor it's commitments to arrest Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic and to return them to the War Crimes Tribunal for justice. That is an important obligation that the people of Serbia have for the future.
There is one other issue that remains, perhaps the most important and complex of all that most of the speakers have discussed and that's the final status of Kosovo. We join many around this table in our strong support for the plan that President Ahtisaari has presented to the United Nation's Security Council. It is fair, it is an equitable settlement plan and it is based on more than 18 months of negotiations. We welcome Prime Minister Ceku here to this table. He is a good friend of the United States and we support him and support President Sejdiu and the Unity government in Pristina. The United States strongly supports independence for Kosovo.
Independence is going to help protect all the communities, and all the minority communities of Kosovo itself. And the United States and Europe intend to circulate in the next several hours at the Security Council in New York a resolution to support President Ahtisaari's plan. The people of Kosovo in our judgment deserve independence. Kosovo has been under United Nations rule for eight years, and it is now time for all of us to act. Europe and the United States have borne the major share of responsibility for Kosovo in the international community since 1999. We are the countries whose soldiers have kept the peace, and we are the countries that will remain after independence to ensure a peaceful future. Therefore the United States will not understand it if others try to derail a process for which we have the major responsibilities, we and Europe, on the ground in Kosovo itself. So we are committed in my country to working with our European allies to resolve this issue this month. The people of Kosovo and the entire region deserve, Mr. Prime Minister, nothing less.
In conclusion, Prime Minister, I would just say that we remember that regional cooperation is not just a slogan. It is the sum of the daily activities that are carried out in every country of this region, and this means hard work in a whole range of areas. It means work in strengthening democratic institutions, in countering trans-border crime, in improving border security and in improving law enforcement, judicial institutions. It's promoting trade, and it's creating jobs and raising living standards for the people. In short, it's addressing the issues of real life for the people of this region, and I promise you that the United States of America will continue to stand with you and all the countries around this table to ensure stability and full integration with the countries of Europe.
Thank you very much.