( dpa ) - Serbian President Boris Tadic on Friday told the West not to bully it into giving up Kosovo, predicting an escalation of conflicts if it were to go ahead with plans to recognise the province as an independent nation state.
"We cannot accept the dismembering of our country," Tadic told scores of high-profile delegates from some 50 countries attending the annual Security Conference in Munich.
Tadic was addressing the conference's opening dinner as a guest of honour. In Sunday elections, he secured a second five-year mandate as president of Serbia by narrowly defeating Tomislav Nikolic, his ultra-nationalist rival.
But those who had expected a conciliatory Tadic in Munich were set for a disappointment.
In a strongly-worded speech, the president cautioned the European Union and the United States against going ahead with their plans to back an independent Kosovo, saying such a move would set a dangerous precedent likely to stoke new and old conflicts in the Balkans and beyond.
"The precedent that would be established should Serbia be partitioned against its will - which is what the imposed independence of Kosovo is in truth - could in turn result in the escalation of many existing conflicts, the re-activation of a number of frozen conflicts, and the instigation of who knows how many new conflicts," Tadic said.
Kosovo is a predominantly ethnic-Albanian province of about 2 million people. It has been under the administration of the United Nations since 1999, when a NATO bombing campaign stopped Serbian ethnic-cleansing there.
Protracted international efforts aimed at finding a negotiated solution between Belgrade and Pristina - Kosovo's capital - failed in December, prompting the province's leaders to announce that they would soon be splitting from Serbia.
The US and most EU member states - divided Cyprus is the notable exception - have made it clear that they are ready to back the people of Kosovo in spite of Serbian opposition.
Serbia's coalition government, lead by nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, has in turn been buoyed by the backing of Russia, which has already threatened to veto UN plans for Kosovo's supervised independence.
Despite being viewed as one of Serbia's most pro-European leaders, Tadic on Friday made few concessions to his audience - mostly Western politicians and security experts - insisting that the only way to resolve the province's future status was through a new UN Security Council resolution.
"Acting through the Security Council guarantees the ultimate legitimacy of outcomes," he said.
He concluded his speech by calling for new negotiations and by reiterating his commitment to advancing Serbia's EU membership cause.
"The only way to resolve differences in the Europe of the 21st century is through negotiations. That's how Europe has been transformed from a place of strife to a place of concord. And that's how we avoid setting precedents that could strike at the very foundation of the architecture of international security," he said.
