Gov't spokesman: Kosovo to gain independence well before May

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Kosovo will gain independence from Serbia well before May, a government spokesman said Monday as the breakaway Serbian province pressed the European Union to swiftly sign off on statehood. "It's not an issue of if, but when," spokesman Skender Hyseni told The Associated Press after a meeting of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership. "Kosovo will look at its own agenda, but it will certainly be much earlier than May." Kosovo is widely expected to announce early in 2008 that it will formally break away from Serbia, but has vowed not to do so without EU and US approval.