UK takes aim at UNSC Kosovo meetings "avoiding Russian veto"

The essence of all these demands is to exert pressure on Serbia and the wider international community to accept the thesis that the Kosovo issue has been resolved, says former Serbian diplomat Zoran Milivojevic.

In August, Britain will take over the one-month rotating presidency over the United Nations Security Council.

With Resolution 1244 passed in 1999, the UN Security Council placed Kosovo under the auspices of the United Nations. Thus, the quarterly reports on the work of the UN mission in Kosovo and Metohija, UNMIK, and about the situation in the province are regularly heard in that body. The UK would like to have less of that.

"It is high time for the Security Council to meet less often on this topic. We need to focus on real threats to international peace and security. Kosovo does not belong in that category," then UK ambassador to the UN Matthew Rycroft said in February.

Along with these demands, London might have another wish - that the Security Council stops dealing with with Kosovo altogether, or does that behind closed doors.

"I am sure that they will endeavor to abolish those sessions and turn this into closed consultations without any official SC sessions on Kosovo. It's possible they will do it during the voting on procedural matters, Russia and China cannot use their veto there. We are not present there," Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic has said.

Vladislav Jovanovic, the former ambassador of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the UN, says that that issue would then start to wane in the eyes of the world because it would not be constantly present.

The president of the SC sets agendas, presides over the meetings and oversees the hotspots. From that position, can they...