America, Serbia and Kosovo
Source:US and Former Yugoslavia
Source:US and Former Yugoslavia
View: Fikret ERTAN, Zaman
Hopes are diminishing for a year-end result from negotiations that have been continuing for months regarding Kosovo’s final status.
U.N. Assistant Representative Albert Rohan has mentioned this matter. In a statement he made several days ago, Rohan said clearly that the chance for progress in negotiations was decreasing and that if things continued like this, negotiations could last another ten years.
For some time the situation, which is due to the parties not changing their positions, has begun to influence another development.
This development, which has escaped notice, is related to increasing closeness and cooperation arising between Serbia and America, and it is extremely important. The first indications of this development appeared during Boris Tadich’s official visit to Washington at the beginning of the month. It seems that this development will affect both American-Serbian relations and the Kosovo dispute.
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice had a very important meeting in Washington with Vice President Dick Cheney and powerful senators. Explaining his country’s Kosovo thesis to them, Tadich signed an important military cooperation agreement with Rice. The main topic of this agreement is the arrangement of conditions to allow American soldiers to move through Serbia. Possessing rights of transit over Serbian land with the 1995 Dayton Agreement, America has clarified and strengthened these rights with this new agreement.
While speaking with American authorities on the subject of Kosovo, Tadich has repeatedly stated that they were opposed to the independence of Kosovo and that its independence threatened security and stability in the Balkans.
We don’t know exactly how much American authorities were influenced by Tadich’s arguments or what kind of answers they gave him, but we have learned that they asked Tadich about General Mladich and that they said they expected results on this matter.
A Serbian journalist named Blich informed us that American authorities offered to postpone the U.N. decision on Kosovo until after Serbian parliamentary elections if Serbia found Mladich before this November and turned him over to the International War Crimes Court in Lahey.
As it is known, Mladich has been hunted for years because of the war crimes he committed in Bosnia. The Mladich topic is extremely sensitive in America. So much so that a $5 million reward will be given to those who catch him.
As a matter of fact, while they are behaving in the same way to him, Tadich has grasped the connection America has made between Mladich and Kosovo and he appears to be preparing to use it to strengthen Serbia’s negotiation position related to Kosovo. For this reason, it seems that in the coming months Mladich will be caught and turned over to Lahey.
Serbian parliamentary elections are related to this topic: When Karadag became independent as a result of a referendum in May; the constitution of the Serbia-Karadag Federation unavoidably became ineffective. For this reason, a new constitution must be accepted in order to hold new parliamentary elections in Serbia because elections held before a new constitution is made would probably take place after the acceptance of Kosovo’s independence. Today’s moderate, pro-Western administration would lose the elections and the Serbian nationalistic Radical Party would gain power. It is foreseen that this would create problems both inside Serbia and in the region. In order to prevent this possibility, America has said it can have the Kosovo decision postponed until after parliamentary elections, until 2007.
With these developments, the Kosovo problem is beginning to take on new dimensions.
e-mail:f.ertan@zaman.com.tr
September 2006
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