Austria's Petritsch 'Not Against' Kosovo-Serbia Border Changes

Veteran Austrian diplomat Wolfgang Petritsch on Thursday said that while he generally opposed territorial changes in principle - in the case of a mutual agreement between Kosovo and Serbia, he would not reject the idea.

"I'm one of the few who, when this idea appeared … did not belong to these people who automatically said 'No'," he told BIRN Kosovo's TV show Jeta ne Kosove.

"I believe this is the first time that I can think of where, in terms of a change of borders, the two sides have decided to look into this issue together," Petritsch told the show.

Petritsch has years of direct experience in the Balkans, having served as the international community's High Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He was later Austria's Representative to the UN in Geneva, and later on its Representative to the OECD in Paris. He now chairs Austria's Marshall Plan Foundation.

He added that while in Balkan history border corrections were always bloody and one-sided arrangements - if Kosovo and Serbia agreed to such changes in a non-violent, negotiated way, as part of a compromise, it would not be excluded under OSCE rules.

When asked how a state like Serbia can negotiate about territory with a country it does not recognise, Petritsch stated that the agreement would have to involve Serbia's full international recognition of Kosovo.

"If you want to change borders, you first have to recognise the country with whom you want to change borders," he said.

"And this is why I am not for the exchange of territories, but I am not against it," he said, adding that "this idea has been on the Brussels table for more than a year".

Petritsch said the only way to get Russia to abstain from using its veto on the UN Security Council, to...