b92.net

Serbia marks 24 years since the beginning of NATO aggression

8–11 minutes

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The order for the attack was issued by Javier Solana, the Secretary General of NATO at the time, to the then commander of the allied forces, US General Wesley Clark, although there was no UN Security Council approval. It was an obvious precedent.

It is estimated that in July 1998, the so-called KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) controlled approximately 40 percent of Kosovo and Metohija. At that time, there were more than 20,000 people in its composition. During this period, they control rural areas and obstruct roads. Attacks on the police, who were trying to guard traffic routes, important points, facilities and urban environments, happened on a daily basis. The Yugoslav Army was forced to help the police during the unblocking of Dečani in June 1998, and Orahovac in July 1998. By October, the police managed to liberate a number of villages in the central part of the province.

At the same time, there was a harsh campaign against Serbia in the Western media. There was, so to speak, a flood of untrue information about the events in Kosovo and Metohija. In the book "Modern Warfare", Wesley Clark later revealed that the planning of the NATO aggression against the FRY "was well underway in mid-June 1998" and that everything was ready a few months later.

The Council of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) on October 12, 1998, made a decision on the adoption of the order for the activation of forces. An agreement between Slobodan Milošević and Richard Holbrooke followed the next day. It is planned to reduce the number of soldiers of the Yugoslav Army in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija to the number from the beginning of 1998. It has been agreed that OSCE observers will monitor the situation, that is, the peace process in Kosovo and Metohija. The agreement also stipulated that no person would be prosecuted in state courts for crimes related to the conflict in Kosovo, except for crimes against humanity and international law.

After the meeting of the NATO Council on January 30, 1999, it was officially announced that NATO was ready to launch strikes against the FRY. The NATO aggression was preceded by insincere offers from the international community, as well as the deployment of additional NATO troops in Albania and Macedonia. Negotiations in Rambouillet were conducted from February 6 to March 19.

The FRY delegation did not sign the final text offered. This was followed by another arrival of Richard Holbrooke in Belgrade on March 22 for negotiations with Slobodan Milošević. The media reported that this last peace attempt also failed.

The level of demands sent to official Belgrade, which was confirmed even by Madeleine Albright, was raised all the time during the so-called negotiations, so that Serbia would be blamed. As interpreted by Vladislav Jovanović, announcements of the bombing had existed for ten years, since the time when Bob Dole promised independence in Pristina. Bill Clinton, the then president of the USA, told the delegation of American Serbs that he would not sign what was offered to Milosevic. A similar view was later expressed by Henry Kissinger.

FRY was attacked as the alleged culprit for the humanitarian disaster in Kosovo and Metohija. The immediate cause, actually the justification, were the events in Račak on January 15. And then the failure of the alleged negotiations conducted in Rambouillet and Paris. In reality, it was support for the terrorist organization of the Kosmet Albanians, the so-called KLA, which by then had already committed numerous crimes.

After the Serbian Parliament confirmed that it does not accept the decision on foreign troops on its territory and proposed that United Nations forces monitor the peace settlement in Kosovo and Metohija, NATO began airstrikes.

According to the first announcement of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army, on March 24 at around 8:45 p.m., more than twenty objects were targeted in the first raid. The first missiles fell on the barracks in Prokuplje at 19:53. This was followed by an attack on Priština, Kuršumlija, and Batajnica.

On the same evening, US President Bill Clinton announced the need to "demonstrate NATO's seriousness in opposing repression", stressing the need to "intimidate Serbia and Yugoslavia" and "destroy Serbia's military capacities", so that, as he said, "actions against the Kosmet Albanians would not be taken". That same evening, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that the NATO aggression was undertaken because "the people of Kosovo" asked for it. In order to further clarify that, by "the people of Kosovo" he means Kosmet Albanians.

Nineteen NATO countries began bombing from ships in the Adriatic, as well as from four air bases in Italy. First of all, the anti-aircraft defense and other facilities of the Yugoslav Army were targeted.

According to the data of the Ministry of Defense of Serbia, 2,500 civilians were killed during the NATO air aggression, among them 89 children and 1,031 members of the Army and police. According to the same source, around 6,000 civilians were wounded, of which 2,700 were children, as well as 5,173 soldiers and policemen, and 25 people were missing.

According to Serbian experts, 18,168 air takeoffs were recorded until June 10. According to NATO sources, there were 38,004 air surges, of which 10,484 were fire actions, while the rest were reconnaissance, anti-aircraft, and tankers. At first, around 70 fighter planes took part in the operations daily, and later that number was around 400 on a daily basis.

NATO's war losses in manpower and technology are denied. The then authorities in Belgrade claimed that more than a dozen aircraft were shot down, which was not confirmed. The Russian agency APN announced that NATO had lost over 400 soldiers and over 60 aircraft, while US President Bill Clinton stated in a speech on June 10, 1999 that NATO had suffered "no casualties". Aircraft F-117, F-16, unmanned aerial vehicles, cruise missiles, aircraft F 117, the so-called "invisible" until then symbol of the superiority of American technology, ended up in a field of the Srem village Budjanovci.

There is almost no city in Serbia that was not targeted during the 11 weeks of aggression. NATO carried out 2,300 strikes and dropped 22,000 tons of missiles, including 37,000 banned cluster bombs and those filled with enriched uranium. Apart from attacks from ships in the Adriatic, as well as from four air bases in Italy, operations were carried out from bases in the countries of Western Europe and the USA.

Infrastructure, economic facilities, schools, health institutions, media outlets, cultural monuments, churches and monasteries were destroyed, totaling about 50 percent of Serbia's production capacity. Various data were presented about the material damage caused during the NATO aggression. The then authorities in Belgrade estimated it at approximately one hundred billion dollars, the group of G17 economists estimated the damage at 29.6 billion US dollars.

In the bombing, 25,000 residential buildings were destroyed and damaged, 470 kilometers of roads and 595 kilometers of railways were disabled. 14 airports, 19 hospitals, 20 health centers, 18 kindergartens, 69 schools, 176 cultural monuments and 44 bridges were damaged, while 38 were destroyed.

A third of the country's electricity capacity was destroyed, two refineries in Pancevo and Novi Sad were bombed, and NATO forces used graphite bombs for the first time to disable the electricity system. The overall consequences for the health of the population and the ecological consequences are immeasurable.

The Chinese embassy in Belgrade was destroyed on May 7, 1999. The RTS building in Belgrade was destroyed on April 23. 16 people died and the same number were wounded. The Novi Sad Television building was hit on May 3, 1999, on the International Day of Media Freedom.

The aggression was stopped with the signing of the Military-Technical Agreement in Kumanovo on June 9, 1999, and the withdrawal of FRY forces from Kosovo and Metohija began three days later. The agreement determined the withdrawal of the military security forces of the FRY from Kosovo and Metohija, and the establishment of UNMIK, a United Nations mission.

On June 10, 1999, the Secretary General of NATO issued an order to stop the bombing. The last projectiles fell in the area of the village of Kololeč, not far from Kosovska Kamenica, at 1:30 p.m., and on the barracks in Uroševac around 7:35 p.m. It was the 79th day of the NATO aggression against Serbia, that is, the FRY.

The UN Security Council then adopted Resolution 1244. 37,200 soldiers from 36 countries were deployed and sent to the province as part of the KFOR mission.

 

foreignpolicy.com

Kosovo Has a Deal With Serbia—if the United States and Europe Can Save It

Edward P. Joseph

10–13 minutes

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Deal or no deal? That's the question baffling the Balkans.

After a pressure-packed summit on Saturday between the leaders of Kosovo and Serbia, the EU's foreign-policy chief, Josep Borrell, proclaimed, "We have a deal," one that promises to lead the two antagonists towards finally normalizing ties. But Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic refused to sign the ambiguous EU-brokered text and has since made statements qualifying and even abrogating key commitments.

Can Vucic ignore Belgrade's obligations in the implementation annex produced in Ohrid, North Macedonia, as well as the rest of the agreement negotiated in Brussels on Feb. 27, which the Serbian president also refused to sign? Why should Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti immediately establish unspecified guarantees for Kosovar Serbs if Kosovo does not know for sure that Serbia will uphold its end of the bargain? Does Serbia tacitly recognize Kosovo under the agreement, or does this depend on further steps?

In short, a cloud of uncertainty hangs over the most important negotiations in the Balkans in more than 20 years. The Kosovo question sparked the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, exposing the inability of the European Union to tackle security problems in its backyard. The standoff between Belgrade and Pristina is at the heart of the multi-decade transatlantic struggle to consolidate the region into the Western order, creating ample opportunity for Russia and China.

The torturous Western diplomacy between Serbia and Kosovo will surely come up during Chinese President Xi Jinping's three-day visit in Moscow. Whatever differences the two autocrats have over the war in Ukraine, Beijing and Moscow are firmly aligned against Kosovo's independence. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Xi will coordinate efforts to undermine the agreement, leaving Kosovo in limbo, the region in turmoil, and Serbia as a shared strategic partner of both Russia and China.

Given what's at stake if the agreement fails, this is not the time for wan congratulatory statements and standard rhetoric about the responsibilities of the parties. It is now Washington and Brussels—not just Belgrade and Pristina—that have to step up to their own responsibilities, particularly given the ambiguities tolerated in the deal. Three steps are vital to creating a foundation for success.

First, the EU must drop the pretense that it is only a facilitator between the parties—and Washington must drop the pretense that it is only a supporter following the EU's lead. The agreement itself includes "EU Proposal" in its title—one fully backed and advanced by the United States.

For the moment, Borrell maintains that implementation is up to the parties, reducing the EU's role to monitoring. In fact, no party has more formal obligations under the Brussels-Ohrid agreement than the EU itself. There are no less than five distinct tasks that the EU has accepted. None is more important than the twice-mentioned commitment for the EU to "chair" a joint committee to ensure and supervise the implementation of "all provisions." With a strict 30-day deadline to establish the Joint Monitoring Committee, Brussels will have to show uncommon mettle. Implementation requires decisive action—not ambiguity designed to avoid it.

Washington's promised active engagement in this early implementation test is essential. The Biden administration repeatedly pressured the Kosovo government over autonomy for the Kosovo Serb community. Belgrade's demand for "the Association of Serb majority municipalities" has nothing to do with the welfare of Kosovar Serbs and everything to do with undermining Kosovo's sovereignty. The reality is that autonomy is premature, given Serbia's influence over the Kosovar Serb polity and Belgrade's active hostility toward its neighbor.

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Having pressed Kosovo to give up its only leverage with Serbia, the onus falls on the United States and EU to confine the scope of "self-management" to the needs of the Serb citizens of Kosovo, not the ambitions of Belgrade or its proxies in Kosovo's north. Kosovar Serbs desperately need autonomy—from Serbia as much as within Kosovo—in order to chart a fully successful future in the country.

Second, the EU must eliminate any lingering doubt about the binding nature of the agreement and all its provisions. Prodded by hasty commentary on the internet, Kosovar Albanians are worried that Vucic can walk away from the agreement because he didn't sign it, or simply choose those provisions he wishes to apply. Western officials have indulged Vucic in his dissembling due to the autocrat's need to face domestic critics. If Vucic is allowed to distort the terms or even the status of the agreement, the chances of implementation plummet.

Serbian citizens deserve to know the truth—and Vucic can survive it. When it comes to treaties and other agreements between states, what counts is the consent to be bound under international law. As Vucic has acknowledged, a signature can manifest this but is not essential. Article 11 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties makes this clear: "The consent of a State to be bound by a treaty may be expressed by signature, exchange of instruments constituting a treaty, ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, or by any other means if so agreed."

The plain text of the EU-mediated agreement—the basic agreement and the annex—shows the clear intention of the parties to be bound, comprehensively. In the second point of the annex, the parties "fully commit to honour all Articles of the Agreement and this Annex, and implement all their respective obligations stemming from the Agreement and this Annex expediently and in good faith."

This is strikingly different from the 2020 Washington agreement that was signed by Vucic and former Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti in the Trump White House. That nonbinding deal didn't even properly name the parties, while the Brussels-Ohrid agreement openly refers to Kosovo and Serbia and labels them "the Contracting Parties." Unlike the grab-bag Trump accord, the Brussels-Ohrid texts are coherent. A preamble frames the core legal and political issues. The Ohrid annex includes several deadlines and a formal implementation mechanism—all proving the clear intention to be bound under law.

As the U.N.-deputized mediator, the EU is fully authorized to determine whether Vucic and Kurti assented to both documents without reservation. Gabriel Escobar, the U.S. State Department deputy assistant secretary overseeing the Western Balkans, has backed the EU position, insisting that the agreement is "legally binding."

Words are not enough. Brussels must follow through and formally amend the EU accession processes for Serbia and Kosovo to reflect their new obligations. To make it clear to the parties—and to Russia and China—that there is no ambiguity about the Brussels-Ohrid agreement, the EU should immediately register it with the U.N. Secretariat. This is fully consistent with the U.N. General Assembly's own call for "every treaty or international agreement, whatever its form and descriptive name … as soon as possible [to] be registered." This applies even to an "agreement that is being provisionally applied prior to its entry into force."

Swift registration will serve notice to Belgrade and Pristina that the EU will not tolerate gainsaying the content of the agreement—as Vucic has done, denying that Kosovo has a path to U.N. membership.  Belgrade should have no qualms with registration at the U.N., given that Serbia launched the U.N. General Assembly process in 2008 that ultimately gave the EU its mandate over the dialogue with Kosovo in 2010. Indeed, the 2010 U.N. General Assembly Resolution, co-sponsored by Serbia, creates an implied opportunity for the EU to report on progress in the dialogue to the U.N.

Finally, Washington must press its EU partners to tackle the biggest loophole in the agreement: the denial to Kosovo of any true European path. Five EU states—Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain—stubbornly refuse to recognize Kosovo, preventing Pristina from even applying for membership in the EU or NATO. It remains entirely unclear whether Serbia's de facto recognition in the Brussels-Ohrid agreement will lead the non-recognizers to change their stance. This is where formalities matter. Serbia's signature and, even better, ratification of the agreement could incline fence sitters to take the long-overdue leap and recognize Kosovo.

Time is of the essence. The United States and EU have now committed their credibility to an agreement that Russia and China have every interest in subverting. Getting just the four NATO non-recognizers—which excludes hard-liner Cyprus—to change their stance would make the Brussels-Ohrid agreement a game-changer; leaving Kosovo only partially recognized in Europe will leave the current, desultory game in place. If the process drags on into 2024, the fear is that a distracted Washington will lose focus, allowing the process to lapse back into crisis management.

The Biden administration needs to think outside the box. One approach is to convince Ukraine to recognize Kosovo on the basis of the Brussels-Ohrid agreement, presenting the non-recognizers with an awkward challenge: If the country whose borders are being savaged by a nuclear-armed foe can recognize Kosovo, why can't the likes of Spain do so as well?

Close transatlantic coordination and focus have brought Serbia and Kosovo to the verge of a breakthrough. With a bit more effort and imagination in the United States and Europe, the entire region can cross the threshold, permanently insulating the Balkans from Russian and Chinese influence.

 

Drecun: There is no chance of reaching the Belgrade-Pristina agreement in Ohrid

kosovo-online.com

Drecun: There is no chance of reaching the Belgrade-Pristina agreement in Ohrid - Kosovo Online

4–5 minutes

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The president of the Parliamentary Committee for Kosovo and Metohija, Milovan Drecun, points out that on March 18, at the meeting in Ohrid in North Macedonia, within the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, there will be no chance of achieving any significant progress, adding that Serbia remains firmly in the positionat it cannot accept and agree to "the membership of a fake state in the UN; we cannot recognize them in any way," RTS reports.

Serbia will not agree or remain silent on the issue of Pristina's entry into the United Nations, President Aleksandar Vucic said, nor will it recognize Kosovo's self-proclaimed independence.

The EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, said from Pristina that the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities would be formed according to one of 15 European models.

Milovan Drecun indicates that Miroslav Lajcak is not behaving in a way that would make it possible to reach any agreement between Belgrade and Pristina, especially with the statement "that now is not the time to form the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities."

"Well, how is it not? That is the primary condition we set, and it was also discussed at the previous meeting in Brussels. First, the implementation, the application of the agreement on the CSM from Brussels, and then everything else. Lajcak is now practically trying to defend Kurti's uncompromising stance, and on the other hand, the EU rewards him with visa liberalization," the president of the parliamentary committee points out.

In this sense, Drecun points out that instead of Pristina suffering appropriate punitive measures because, as he says, "Pristina otherwise does not understand the messages sent to it," they reward and encourage it to persevere in its positions.

Drecun believes that Lajcak is making contradictory statements that the CSM will not be formed on the basis of the Brussels Agreement but that some other modalities will now be sought in order, as he assesses, to allow Albin Kurti, due to criticism from the public and the opposition, to obtain any way out if he does not achieve mutual recognition.

"Our management team, which was formed in accordance with the agreement, informed Lajcak that the draft statute had been prepared in 2018 and twice more since then, most recently in April of last year. And all this time, he failed to convince Pristina that the draft statute should be considered. Don't explain the procedures to us now, but take the draft statute and put it on the agenda of the summit meeting between Presidents Vucic and Kurti, and then begin the process of forming the CSM," Drecun says.

What Serbia expects from the meeting in Ohrid

Commenting on Albin Kurti's statement "that he is going to Ohrid but that he will not accept the formation of the CSM," Drecun says that Kurti is a political adventurer.

"Instead of forming the CSM, he is taking a completely different path. Now he is going to Ohrid, so why are you going there, to try the Ohrid trout? Well, you can go on your own for that. The key point here is that some sort of agreement must be reached and progress must be achieved," Drecun emphasizes.

However, as for the meeting in Ohrid on March 18, he says that he does not expect anything from it, just as it was in Brussels.

"We will remain firm in our position that we cannot accept and agree with the membership of a fake state in the UN, and that we cannot recognize them in any way. I think that there will be no chance again to achieve any significant progress in Ohrid," Drecun concluded.

 

transconflict.com

Let Kosovo be partitioned

TransConflict

13–16 minutes

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It's wrong to close down the partition option. If this is what the local parties can agree on, let Kosovo be partitioned. The US has finally accepted this logic. Others should now do the same.

By Timothy Less

At long last, the United States has decided to let Belgrade and Pristina resolve the question of Kosovo's status the way they want – if necessary, it seems, by partitioning the territory.

Its embassy in Prishtina has stated that 'sides in the dialogue will have unlimited freedom to decide about the destiny of their countries'. This follows an interview last month in which the American ambassador to Pristina refused to rule out partition, to the evident surprise of the interviewer.

About time.

The unresolved question of Kosovo's status has left the country in a debilitating state of limbo for nearly two decades.

However, attempts to resolve the issue have been persistently foiled by the insistence of the West, and particularly the US, on precluding the one thing which Serbia has consistently said it might accept in return for recognising the breakaway state – namely the Serb-dominated enclave in Kosovo's north.

Is Serbia being unreasonable in demanding this? Perhaps so. But that's beside the point. If Serbia is to shift its position and recognise Kosovo, which is the only way out of the current imbroglio, then its demand must be taken seriously.

Doing the deal

The attraction of any deal based on partition, of course, is that it is simply a formalisation of the reality on the ground.

Belgrade knows it has lost the south of Kosovo because its overwhelmingly-Albanian population will never accept a return to Serbian sovereignty. And Pristina knows it doesn't control the north which is dominated by Serbs and is functionally a part of Serbia.

So, the core of any such deal is a potential win for both sides, without either having to give anything new away. That bodes well for an agreement.

However, success or failure will ultimately depend on a resolution of various second-order issues, most obviously the status of those Serbs left behind in Kosovo, south of the river Ibar.

Belgrade will probably ask Pristina for some form of self-government for this community – probably less than the pending EU-mediated deal to establish an Association of Serb Municipalities, which would give some autonomy to Kosovo Serbs, but the minimum needed for a population numbering a few tens of thousands to maintain its basic way of life.

In return, Pristina will likely demand an end to the complex arrangements that give Serbs massively disproportionate influence in Kosovo's political institutions, including ten reserved seats in parliament and veto powers over matters of vital interest. Pristina will also want Serbia to do something for the Preshevo Valley, a region bordering Kosovo in southern Serbia, where the Albanian population is agitating to be part of discussions about Kosovo.

How Serbia responds to that remains to be seen. Potentially it will sacrifice Preshevo to prevent Albanians spreading to other parts of southern Serbia. Or it might agree to grant Preshevo whatever Pristina is willing to give Serbs in southern Kosovo. Alternatively, Belgrade and Pristina might agree not to make any special arrangements and support those who decide, all things considered, to make a new life across the border.

Around the edges there are also issues of monasteries, missing persons, financial compensation and more besides that each will put on the negotiating table.

But if both sides can find some basic equilibrium in what President Vucic has called a 'comprehensive package', and sell it to their domestic constituencies, then a deal based on 'partition for recognition' which ends the Kosovo conundrum is a real possibility.

Risks and opportunities

Good news, you would think.

But so far, reaction in European capitals has been overwhelmingly hostile to the idea of partition and focused exclusively on a set of perceived attendant dangers. There is generalised talk of ethnic tensions, separatism and renewed conflict in the region.

Naturally, there are risks involved, as there are in any process of conflict resolution. But these should be kept in perspective.

One oft-raised concern is that Serbia's annexation of the north would expose those Serbs left behind in the south to the risk of ethnic cleansing.

Would it, though?

An act of recognition by Serbia would fundamentally change the calculus in Kosovo.

Serbs have been targeted in the past because their presence complicates the Albanians' goal of independence. Not only have they given Belgrade leverage over Kosovo's internal affairs, but Western diplomats have insisted on diluting Kosovo's statehood to uphold the rights of the Serb community.

If, however, Serbia recognises Kosovo, then Albanians will have achieved their core political goal and have no obvious reason to bother the small Serbian population that remains. If anything, the risk of ethnic cleansing will be lower than now.

Another concern is that Kosovo's partition will set a dangerous precedent in a region beset by unresolved ethno-nationalist border disputes.

The greatest fear is for Bosnia where Serbs and Croats have made abundantly clear they do not want to be ruled from Sarajevo – just as Kosovo's Albanians do not want to be ruled from Belgrade.

If Kosovo, is partitioned, so the thinking goes, then why not Bosnia too?

Again, however, that is a questionable assumption. If the Balkans was governed by such simple processes of cause and effect, Republika Srpska would have declared its independence after Kosovo did the same in 2008.

Instead, the fate of Bosnia depends far more on politics inside the country and the wider geopolitical environment than it does on developments inside Kosovo. So, there is no immediate need for panic.

Moreover, to the extent that a deal on partitioning Kosovo did have repercussions, by focusing minds in Sarajevo on the prospect of the Bosnian state breaking up, there might finally be a chance of ending Bosnia's excruciating political deadlock.

As in any separatist conflict, the onus is on the Bosniaks, as the largest group and the one which wants to preserve the Bosnian state to find a modus vivendi with the Serbs and Croats, both of which want more autonomy.

To date, however, Bosniaks have refused point blank to discuss these demands, secure in the knowledge that the US stands behind them and that everything to do with borders is non-negotiable.

This has fuelled the frustration of the Serbs and Croats and recently generated worrying levels of heat: Croats demand a third entity, Serbs threaten to secede, and Bosniaks threaten Serbs with violence, which only increases their determination to break away. On its current trajectory, Bosnia is heading for some kind of bust up.

Since Serbs and Croats are manifestly not going to change their minds, the only way out of this malaise is the emergence of pragmatic leaders within the Bosniak community who are prepared to take Serb and Croat demands for greater autonomy seriously and name their price for agreeing to this.

And a game-changing deal in Kosovo could be the catalyst for this by demonstrating that borders are not inviolable, the US is no longer taking sides and that long-standing foes can resolve their disputes by peaceful negotiation rather than settling them on the battlefield.

The prize is not just something of value to Bosniaks but a way out of the current deadlock and even a chance for Bosnia to develop as a state, to everyone's benefit, most of all the Bosniaks themselves.

A deal in Kosovo could also offer lessons to Macedonia where Albanians have made similarly clear they will not accept second-class status in a state run for the benefit of Macedonians, but where a majority of Macedonians does not wish the country to become bi-national in character, manifest in their opposition to the proposed language law.

This ultimately leaves Albanians with only one option, which is some kind of split in which Macedonians do what they want on their land and Albanians do what they want on theirs. Again, a negotiated solution in Kosovo can offer a way out if pragmatic politicians in Skopje are willing to state their terms for giving the Albanians the autonomy they seek.

Many will object that deals are impossible in Bosnia and Macedonia and merely opening a discussion about fundamentals will automatically lead to war, presumably because they think Balkanites are inveterate barbarians who know only one way to solve their problems – with violence.

But the reason deals have hitherto been impossible is because the West has distorted the local balance of power by backing selected local clients and blocking any meaningful debate about the political arrangements in the region. If the West adopted a position of genuine neutrality, as the US is apparently now doing in Kosovo, then suddenly the impossible would become possible.

As for the resort to violence, the current negotiations over Kosovo clearly show that local parties can talk about fundamentals in a peaceful manner – especially since there is huge popular opposition to conflict following the traumas of the 1990s.

Finally, there is the spectre of the so-called Greater Albania – or, more accurately an Albanian nation state. If Kosovo was recognised by Serbia, Pristina would no doubt seek tighter relations with its more successful southern neighbour. The signs of ever-closer union are plain to see, not least this month when the two dismantled their border controls.

But is it really such a problem if Albania and Kosovo do eventually unite? Unless there is some hidden interest in denying Albanians the kind of national state which other Europeans take for granted, they have every right to have one, if that is their wish.

The only obvious casualty would be the ideology of multiculturalism, which would suffer a major setback in a region which has long been a laboratory for Western liberals to practice their social experiments. And that, one suspects, is the real motivation for much of the hostility towards partition.

At the same time, of course, the risks of a deal based on partition must be weighed against the risks of a deal not based on partition – which, given Serbia's bottom line, means no deal at all.

Kosovo itself will remain in a state of limbo and the north a flashpoint for conflict. And the EU will steadily lose its little remaining leverage as the prospect of membership fades into nothingness.

Indeed, after the EU-Balkans summit in Sofia in May, the General Affairs Council in June and the washout in London last month, it is clear that any enlargement of the union is now on permanent hold as European leaders focus their energies on arresting the EU's slow-motion demise.

It is not hard to foresee a scenario in which Serbia one day simply seizes northern Kosovo out of sheer frustration, triggering a crisis which leads to the revenge expulsion of Serbs in southern Kosovo and the reciprocal expulsion of Albanians from Serbia.

And that sort of violent shock really could trigger the kind of domino effect around the region which angst-ridden opponents of partition are predicting.

A new opportunity

Far from being a regional Armageddon, the new focus on partition offers a solution to the Kosovo problem, and one which has a genuine chance of success following the apparent lifting of the American veto.

In doing so, the US is to be applauded for finally recognising the two most obvious points about the Kosovo debate – that the only durable solution is one which accords with the wishes of the people on the ground. And that what really matters to those people are traditional concepts such as nationhood, sovereignty and territory.

Of course, there are risks to a deal based on partition because the consequence could be to open a new phase in the unfinished process of dissolution of the former Yugoslavia. Partition will also provide no instant panacea to the problems of poor governance and poverty.

But in the longer term, by disentangling their affairs in a peaceful, negotiated manner, Serbs and Albanians can finally embark on the long-frustrated process of state-building and address vital issues like democracy, the economy and the rule of law. With the foundations secured, construction of the house can finally begin.

Indeed, there is no reason why, in a couple of decades' time, Serbia and an enlarged Albania which incorporates Kosovo cannot be reasonably prosperous, moderately well-governed and strategically-important nation states, with close links to Russia, China, Turkey and the West, and constructive relations with their neighbours.

That seems a more inspiring vision than the current pathway which leads nowhere except continued political deadlock, economic stagnation and a fruitless struggle to join a declining EU, which probably ends with some kind of security breakdown when people's patience is fully exhausted.

Partitions and border adjustments may be an ugly solution to an ethno-territorial conflict, but Kosovo is not an aesthetic or moral problem but a political one. The overwhelming priority is to get Serbia to recognise Kosovo so life can go on, and Serbia has said that its price for doing so is the return of the northern enclave.

So, it's wrong to close down the partition option. If this is what the local parties can agree on, let Kosovo be partitioned. The US has finally accepted this logic. Others should now do the same.

Timothy Less is the director of the Nova Europa political risk consultancy and the leader of The New Intermarium research project at the University of Cambridge.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of TransConflict.

 

 

Putin & Zelensky: Sinners and saints who fit our historic narrative

Responsible Statecraft   Putin & Zelensky:  Sinners and saints who fit our historic narrative Think about why the West wants to invoke WWII and the Cold War here, and then ask whether it's been productive. February 21, 2023 By Stephen Kinzer   This is part of our weeklong series marking the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, February 24, 2022. See all of the stories here. While war rages in Ukraine, all is blissfully peaceful on the home front. Americans have embraced the official narrative. No western movie ever drew the good-versus-evil line so clearly or crudely. The White House, Congress, and the press insist that Ukraine is the innocent victim of unprovoked aggression, that Russian forces will threaten all of Europe if they are not stopped, and that the United States must stand with Ukraine "for as long as it takes" to assure victory. Dissenting from this consensus is all but impossible. Even in the run-up to our 2003 invasion of Iraq, a few lonely voices cried out for restraint. Since we plunged into the Ukraine War, such voices are even harder to find. Today it is considered heretical, if not treasonous, to suggest that all parties to the Ukraine conflict bear some blame,  to argue that the United States should not pour sophisticated weapons into an active war zone, or to question whether we have any vital interest in the outcome of this conflict. A strictly enforced intellectual no-fly zone has all but suffocated rational debate about Ukraine. [Continue Reading]