nationalinterest.org

At the Brussels Summit, NATO Faces a Crucial Test

NATO needs a frank discussion among the allies about Russia.

by Nikolas K. Gvosdev

2 minutes

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Furthermore, the United States has, despite Trump's preferences, been leaning towards a more confrontational approach that tries to isolate Russia and put pressure on the Kremlin. The matter is complicated because the United States is not willing to trade cooperation on Russia for consideration on other issues of concern to other European allies. It would have been challenging to convince Germany to abandon the Nordstream-2 pipeline project or for France to get its energy companies to pull out of key Russian projects—certainly President Barack Obama had no such luck! But the chance that countries like France and Germany will be more willing to part company with Washington over Russia policy has increased with recent American decisions. These have included Trump's imposition of tariffs on European allies who are now deemed to be national economic security risks and the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal. Moreover, America's withdrawal from the agreement threatens that U.S. secondary sanctions will be imposed on European companies doing business with Tehran.

The risk is that a contentious NATO summit gives the appearance of major fractures in Euro-Atlantic solidarity right before Trump sits down with Putin in Vienna. It may also shape the tenor of French President Emmanuel Macron's "historic dialogue" with Russia in a way that suggests that daylight is opening up in the positions of NATO allies vis-à-vis Russia. Such an outcome would not serve Western security interests.

Nikolas K. Gvosdev is a contributing editor to the National Interest. The views expressed here are his own.

Image: Reuters. 

 

chroniclesmagazine.org

Islamic Migratory Onslaught in the Balkans

11-13 minutes

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By:Srdja Trifkovic | June 25, 2018

 

On June 20 Serbia's foreign minister Ivica Dacic made an interesting remark in connection with the ongoing political and territorial dispute over the status of Kosovo. We are witnessing a new reflection of the desire to create the "green transverse" in the Balkans, which is a "dangerous fantasy" motivated by ambitious Islamic extremism. "This is nothing new," Dacic went on, "this is an aspiration which has been present for centuries.

The Green Transverse (aka "Green Corridor," Zelena transverzala, Grüne Transversale, Dorsale verde) is a key geopolitical concept which denotes the long-term goal of Islamist activists, both in the Balkans and in the wider Muslim world, to create a geographically contiguous chain of majority-Muslim or Muslim-dominated polities that will extend from Turkey in the southeast to the northwestern-most point of Bosnia (a mere hundred miles as the crow flies from Austria's southeastern border). Over the past quarter-century it has resulted in the strengthening of traditionally Muslim communities in the Balkans, expanding the geographic area of their demographic dominance and enhancing their Islamic character.

Political, cultural, religious and demographic trends among Muslim communities in the Balkans demonstrate that the Green Corridor is taking shape, either deliberately or spontaneously. Nevertheless, many Western academic experts and media commentators have been dismissive of any suggestion that a long-term Islamic geopolitical design exists in the Balkans, let alone that it is being deliberately and systematically pursued. Yet far from being a paranoid concept with "Islamophobic" overtones, its most authoritative analysts have been institutions and experts with no ethnic or confessional axe to grind in the Balkan scene.

During the Bosnian war in the 1990's the late Sir Alfred Sherman, former advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and co-founder of The Lord Byron Foundation, warned that the Muslims' objective was "to create a 'Green Corridor' from Bosnia through the Sanjak to Kosovo." Western powers are "in effect fostering this Islamistan," Sherman warned, while "Washington is actively helping the Muslim forces."

A decade later, the same theme was echoed by Col. Shaul Shay of BESA Center at Bar-Ilan University. Writing in 2008, he noted that "the Balkans serve as a forefront on European soil for Islamic terror organizations, which exploit this area to promote their activities in Western Europe, and other focal points worldwide." His verdict regarding the Green Corridor is disquieting: "The establishment of an independent Islamic territory including Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania . . . is one of the most prominent achievements of Islam since the siege of Vienna in 1683. Islamic penetration into Europe through the Balkans is one of the main achievements of Islam in the twentieth century."

John Schindler, former professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College and National Security Agency analyst, concurs. Writing in 2008, he pointed out that the Balkans provide the missing piece in the puzzle of al-Qa'ida's transformation from an isolated fighting force into a lethal global threat. Radical Islam played a key role in the Yugoslav conflict, Schindler says: like Afghanistan in the 1980s, Bosnia in the 1990s became a training ground for the mujahidin, leading to blowback of epic proportions. "Jihadist Networks in the Balkans" was also the theme of the October 2008 issue of the prominent Italian geopolitical review Limes, and the subject was revisited in February of this year. Overall, the Green Corridor reflects precisely Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations; he treated the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina as a paradigmatic case of the "fault-line wars" between Islam and the rest.

The trouble with the Serbian foreign minister's statement is that the Green Transverse is not and cannot be described as "fantasy." Quite the contrary, its long-term objectives are currently fueled by a new wave of overwhelmingly Muslim migrants from the Greater Middle East and by the manifest desire of the European Union—especially Germany—to resettle them along the Union's southeastern borders, which effectively means in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. According to the Viennese daily Die Presse (June 14), Serbia will also be the destination of those asylum seekers whose applications are rejected in the EU and who are subsequently deported. That Serbia whould become the "end station" for migrants has been a constant theme of the German-language media for over a year.

The problem is that 11 years ago the government of Serbia signed a readmission treaty with the European Union, which states that migrants whose asylum applications are rejected in the Union will be sent to "the last safe country" on their journey in which they were registered—which is Serbia. This was a grossly irresponsible act of treason by the pro-EU quasi-elite in Belgrade. It is now clear that various Eurocrats in Brussels intend to turn the country into a giant depository for unwanted migrants, instead of sending them back to their countries of origin. The European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Berto thus declared back in September 2015 that since the EU has a readmission agreement with Serbia, persons arriving in the EU without the right to remain there would be sent back to the last pre-EU country of transit. In 2016, the Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Nils Muiznieks reiterated the intention of EU member states to send unsuccessful asylum seekers to Serbia.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina the situation is further complicated by the desire of the Muslim leaders in this tri-national quasistate to facilitate the influx and permanent settlement of their coreligionists from the Middle East and North Africa. They hope to change the ethnic and confessional balance in their favor and to the detriment of Serbs and Croats, who between them still have a simple majority in the chronically unstable former Yugoslav republic. For the Sarajevo government's minister for human rights Semiha Borovac, a Muslim, the only issue is not how to protect borders, but how to help migrants "in accordance with the EU Action Plan." Her attitude is perfectly in line with the position of the Bosnian Muslims' wartime leader Alija Izetbegovic that "Islam contains the principle of ummet, the tendency to unite all Muslims into a single community—a spiritual, cultural and political community . . . It is a natural function of the Islamic order to gather all Muslims and Muslim communities throughout the world into one."

At the same time, the Christian communities all over the Balkans are in a steep, long-term demographic decline. Fertility rate is below replacement level in every majority-Christian country in the region. The Muslims, by contrast, have the highest birth rates in Europe, with the Albanians topping the chart. On current form it is likely that Muslims will reach a simple majority, both in Bosnia and in the Balkans as a whole, within a decade at most.

Quite apart from the devastating effect on the declining Christian communities in the Balkans, this process also has major security implications for the Western world. Already two decades ago a classified State Department report warned that the Muslim-controlled parts of Bosnia had become a safe haven for Islamic terrorism. The core of Bin Laden's Balkan network consisted of the veterans of El Moujahed brigade of the Bosnian-Muslim army from the 1990's, distinguished by their spectacular cruelty. They went on to perpetrate murder and mayhem all over the world. They planned the Millennium Plot, the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, and attacks on U.S. military installations in Germany. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, who planned the 9/11 attacks, was a veteran of the Bosnian jihad, as were two of the hijackers. As Jane's Intelligence Review concluded in 2006, "The current threat of terrorism in Bosnia and Herzegovina comes from a younger, post-war generation of militant Islamists, radicalized by US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan."

There is a growing gap between the reality of Islam in the Balkans and Western mainstream narrative about the allegedly moderate and tolerant "Balkan Islam." The problem of the Green Corridor will not be resolved without critical reexamination of Western policies as well as Western illusions. That problem has morphed over the past quarter-century into a demographic, social and political reality. As Professor Raphael Israeli warned over a decade ago, "[W]hile the Muslims have established a continuity which drives a wedge within Christian Central Europe, the West is looking with indifference at that evolving situation which they hope will create a docile, Turkish-like Islam . . . It is doubtful whether these hopes will be fulfilled."

Western policies in Southeast Europe have had the effect, either by design or by default, to favor the aspirations of various supposedly pro-Western Muslim communities in the Balkans along the geographic line extending from Turkey north-westwards towards Central Europe. In Washington, that policy was based to a large extent on the expectation that satisfying Islamists' ambitions in a secondary theater would improve the U.S. standing in the Muslim world as a whole.

The policy had never yielded any dividends, but repeated failure has only prompted its advocates to redouble their efforts. Former U.S. Under-Secretary of State Nicholas Burns thus declared on February 18, 2008, a day after Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence: "Kosovo is going to be a vastly majority Muslim state, given the fact that 92 to 94 percent of their population is Muslim, and we think it is a very positive step that this Muslim state, Muslim majority state, has been created today." If it is intrinsically "a very positive step" for the U.S. that a "vastly Muslim state" is created on European soil that had been cleansed of non-Muslims with American assistance, then it should be expected that Washington will be equally supportive of any new Islamistan in the Green Corridor-affected area.

Far from providing a model of pro-Western "moderate Islam," majority-Muslim areas of the Balkans have become the breeding ground for thousands of young, fanatical Islamists. Their dedication is honed in thousands of foreign-financed mosques and Islamic centers. If Western policy in the Balkans was not meant to facilitate the Green Corridor, it needs to be explained why its effects have coincided with the objectives of those same Islamists who threaten Western interests, and—in Europe—the very survival of traditionally Christian nations. They will have to foot the immediate bill for such folly and malice, and it has been paid already by Kosovo's disappearing Serbs; but long-term costs of the expansion of the Green Corridor will haunt both America and Europe for decades to come. 

[Image: By Chatham House (Ivica Dacic, Prime Minister of Serbia) [CC BY 2.0]]

 

Vucic wonders if Albanians would like piece of Hungary, too

b92.net

Vucic wonders if Albanians would like piece of Hungary, too - PoliticsEnglish

7-9 minutes

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"An exchange of territory with Kosovo" is out of the question, according to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who spoke on Tuesday.

Source: Tanjug Tuesday, June 19, 2018 | 14:39

 

(Tanjug, file)

Vucic made this comment after Kosovo president's adviser Rexhep Hoti said on Monday that "a partition of Kosovo is not on the agenda - but if it was then Kosovo should take Sandzak (informal term for Serbia's southwestern region) and a part of southern Serbia."

Vucic reacted to this by asking ironically whether Pristina wanted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to also "give them Kecskemet (a town in central Hungary)."

"Have they considered Vojvodina at all, Belgrade - Sumadija, that goes without saying... let's ask Orban if he'll give them Kecskemet... what can I say to that, of course I'm joking," the president replied to reporters.

He then warned that there is "the need among a part of Albanians" to form the so-called Green (Muslim) Transversal - "and the north of Kosovo lies in its path: between southern (Kosovska) Mitrovica, Vucitrn, Srbica, on the other side, Ribaric, Novi Pazar and the central part of Serbia, Raska."

"That's why the territory of northern Kosovo bothers them so much," said Vucic, adding that he "cannot always comment on that, because somebody could misunderstand."

"And when I speak about their 'hunger' to occupy the north of Kosovo I always have all these arguments, both Gazivode and Valac, for that need of theirs to maintain that line which they've always insisted on, and no politician can hide it any longer - even if it's no longer about the Albanian question," said Vucic.

"That is what we have seen, what we know and what we feel. And it is something that will not happen," he said.

Asked what would happen if Albanians were to "storm" the north of Kosovo and Metohija, the president replied by saying that he had "posed this question publicly, but received no answer."

All the same, he stressed, it was his job "to do everything to preserve peace, secure stability and guarantee safety to our people in Kosovo and Metohija."

Vucic said that "for the most part we have managed to do that so far, despite numerous organized incidents - because there are no accidental incidents with them."

"Those are fairy-tales, they do that on command and always have, but it still hasn't taken on dramatic proportions - it isn't of small and insignificant proportions either, but it isn't dramatic," he said.

Vucic added that the reason for this was "us managing to conduct a responsible and smart policy."

 

ft.com

Macedonia seeks new direction with name change

Valerie Hopkins in Skopje June 15, 2018

6-8 minutes

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It is just one word — North. But when Macedonia's prime minister told his Greek counterpart this week that he had agreed to add the adjective to his country's name, it lifted hopes of ending a Balkan conflict that has dragged on for almost three decades.

For 27 years Greece has held Macedonia in geopolitical limbo, refusing to entertain the idea of its northern neighbour joining organisations such as Nato and the EU under a name Athens said should belong only to its own northern province — the historical realm of Alexander the Great.

Now, after international mediation, a new era is at hand. But the deal, which the countries' prime ministers hope to sign at a border ceremony on Sunday, must still be ratified in both nations.

"We are resolving a two-and-a-half decades' long dispute, in order to take the country out of isolation," Zoran Zaev, the Macedonian premier, said in an address to the nation this week, announcing the country's new name.

Proponents say that settling on the Republic of North Macedonia allows Athens to protect its ancient past while assuring Skopje, and Macedonia's 2.1m people, of a viable future and opening the door to Nato and the EU. The compromise concedes Greece's primary demand — a geographic qualifier that its neighbour must use internally and externally — while confirming a unique Macedonian identity and language, a crucial demand of Skopje.

"It was a Solomon's compromise that we all needed," said Dimitri, in Skopje this week. "We have no claim to Greece's Hellenic history anyway, we are Slavs," he said, referring to a point in the deal that distinguishes his country's Slavic language and culture from the Hellenic culture of Alexander the Great and his father, Phillip II of Macedon.

But that view is far from uniform. "We do not accept any changes to Macedonia's name. It is non-negotiable," said Vladimir Kavadarkov, a retired lawyer, at a makeshift protest camp facing Macedonia's parliament in Skopje.

"Traitors!" said a pink banner left over from a protest on Wednesday by more than 1,000 opponents of the name deal.

For Mr Kavadarkov, the agreement represents the latest in a long series of capitulations to "destroy Macedonian self-confidence, dignity, sovereignty and identity". The protest camp was festooned with the flag Macedonia used for four years in the 1990s until Athens imposed a trade embargo, saying the star it depicted was a Greek symbol.

© AFP

Gjorge Ivanov, Macedonian president, has threatened to veto Mr Zaev's deal, though parliament could override his objection. Macedonia also needs to change its constitution in parliament — where Mr Zaev may struggle to secure the two-thirds required for amendments — and gain approval in a national referendum.

Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, also faces opposition to a deal, including a confidence vote this weekend.

When Mr Zaev came to power last year an important aim was to overcome Greece's perennial veto and open the way to join the EU, which recommended Macedonia for candidate status in 2005. His government hopes that if the EU and Nato quickly open accession talks it will help it to win a referendum on the name deals.

"While this is an opportunity for Macedonia . . . it is also an opportunity for the EU and Nato, to show that this kind of behaviour can lead to progress and development," Radmila Sekerinska, Macedonia's defence minister, told the Financial Times.

She said the deal would make Macedonia the first country in the region without a dispute with its neighbours.

Mr Zaev has taken a radically different tack to previous governments, in particular that of Nikola Gruevski, the former premier who led the country for a decade until 2016. After Greece blocked Macedonia from joining Nato under its provisional name "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", Mr Gruevski retaliated with a grandiose campaign of "antiquisation" — putting up statues and neoclassical buildings to defy Athens by staking Skopje's shared claim to ancient Macedonian history.

Ekrem Neziri: 'It is the same for us whether it is Macedonia, North Macedonia, or anything else'

Without the carrot of joining Nato and the EU, Mr Gruevski ushered in a period of cronyism and democratic backsliding that Brussels eventually labelled "state capture".

Macedonia, which narrowly avoided a civil war in 2001 after ethnic Albanian insurgents demanded greater rights, remains deeply polarised. Mr Zaev's promise to increase Albanian language rights has inflamed ethnic Macedonian nationalists. Mr Ivanov vetoed a law to increase the use of Albanian.

Nikola Poposki, a member of the opposition VMRO-DPMNE, who served as Macedonia's previous foreign minister, said rifts would widen if the name deal — which he called a "100-0" win for Greece — were adopted.

Ethnic Albanians, who make up a quarter of the population, have largely kept quiet on the name issue. "It is the same for us whether it is Macedonia, North Macedonia, or anything else, as long as we have jobs, can live our lives, and live without hate," said Ekrem Neziri, an ethnic Albanian selling rugs in Skopje's sprawling Ottoman-era bazaar.

Mr Poposki said Mr Zaev's pursuit of a name deal had deflected attention from the weak economy, which grew just 0.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2018.

Yet others say the previous regime's refusal to compromise held their country back for too long.

For Vladimir Kavadarkov, right, the agreement represents the latest in a long series of capitulations to destroy Macedonian dignity

"It's ridiculous that people are still worried about things from millennia ago while our kids sit here in poorly equipped schools receiving a bad education because of some name," said Dunja Ivanova, a book seller.

Ms Sekerinska said much of the deal's fate now lay in EU hands.

"As long as the EU is strict but fair, we don't mind," she said. "But if the EU is strict but unfair, it undermines not only the leverage of enlargement, it undermines to a certain extent stability in the Balkans . . . If [people] see that in spite of courageous leadership nothing changes, and the EU remains a fortress, then only nationalistic and populistic forces will gain strength."

 

About 60 foreign services are active in Serbia, says expert

b92.net

About 60 foreign services are active in Serbia, says expert - PoliticsEnglish

6-8 minutes

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Serbia is targeted by intelligence services of some 60 countries, which plan subversive acts, fake news, and disturbance of the public.

Source: Tanjug Friday, June 15, 2018 | 10:31

 

(Getty Images, file, illustration purposes)

This is according to professor Milan Mijalkovski, former dean at the Faculty of Security, who told the daily Politika that "everything that is happening in Serbia can also be observed through some internal reason, but should be brought into context of foreign factors' interests."

According to him, the situation in Serbia and the region should be viewed as a system of communicating vessels. Mijalkovski pointed out to the sharp clash in this region of the geopolitical interests of the world's biggest powers - the United States, Russia and China, Turkey as a regional powers, but also the transnational factor ignored by many - the Islamists.

Then there's the "aggressive posture" of the West, above all the EU, in terms of Kosovo and Metohija, he continued.

Based on his experience and long-term monitoring of the situation, Mijalkovski said that Serbia is being "investigated" by intelligence services of about 60 countries.

"Bearing in mind that they have been doing this for almost three decades, it means they have created such positions, such influential agency in Serbia that is ready, trained, educated to perform diverse subversive activities, starting with pressure groups, launching all kinds of fake news, disturbing the public. Their capabilities are respectable and they are constantly strengthened by various activities, primarily secret, but also public," he said.

Asked what the main goal is, Mijalkovski replied that they want to force Serbia to recognize as soon as possible the fake state of Kosovo. "As resistance toward such a goal grows, it's to be expected that they will amplify various types of pressure. I think that is how we should look at the current security situation and perspectives," Mijalkovski said.

 

kossev.info

Moscow could be more involved over Kosovo, Ambassador says

N1

2 minutes

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Russia's Ambassador to Serbia thinks that Moscow could get more involved in finding a solution to the Kosovo problem. 

In an opinion piece for Belgrade daily Politika, Ambassador Alexander Chepurin said Russia could get "even more deeply involved" if proposals to that effect are made.

"Belgrade is facing ultimate pressure from traditional Serb haters," the Ambassador wrote adding that Moscow will stay on Belgrade's side.

"Our view remains unchanged – we will support the decision which Serbia and the Serb people find acceptable. We are starting with the fact that the legal basis for an agreement is the UN Security Council resolution," Chepurin said.

Commenting what he called unjustified comparisons of Kosovo to Crimea, the Ambassador said these are "two completely different stories". "The Crimea question is definitively closed. Crimea is Russia, Kosovo is Serbia. That is not just a slogan, that is the legal reality which has to be respected," Chepurin said.

N1

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Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.

 

The Economist: The Difficulties of Exchanging Territory in the Balkans

novinite.com

The Economist: The Difficulties of Exchanging Territory in the Balkans - Novinite.com

4-5 minutes

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TEN years ago Kosovo declared independence from Serbia. Its Albanians, who make up the majority of the population, have been celebrating. But its Serbs, most of whom live in enclaves, have not. Serbia does not recognise Kosovo, which used to be its southern province, and Kosovo Serbs still consider themselves citizens of Serbia. The situation is typical of the Balkans, where borders are, frankly, a mess. So there are Serbs living in Kosovo and in Bosnia-Hercegovina, where they have their own republic (the Republika Srpska), Albanians and Bosniaks (Muslims) living in Serbia, and Greeks living in Albania. Recently the Serbian authorities proposed a discussion about an exchange of territory with their Kosovo Albanian counterparts. Is this a sensible idea?

In 1923 Greece and Turkey agreed to exchange some 2m people. Mostly Greek-speaking Christian Orthodox citizens of Turkey were sent to Greece, and Muslims from Greece were sent to Turkey. It was a brutal relocation, but, note its defenders, Greece and Turkey have not fought a war since. The only place where Greeks and Turks have fought is Cyprus, where their populations remained mixed. This has inspired nationalists in the western Balkans. Between 1918 and the late 1950s, many Muslims were encouraged to leave Yugoslavia for Turkey. But at the time of Yugoslavia's collapse in the 1990s it still contained a thorough mix of peoples. Leaders in those Yugoslav wars saw ethnic cleansing as the best way to create new nation-states unpeopled by troublesome minorities. By 1995 historically Serb-populated regions of Croatia were empty and hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks had similarly been turfed out of their homes in Bosnia. But the countries that emerged from the implosion did not neatly encircle Serbs, Albanians, Croats and so on. Myriad Serbs may have fled Kosovo after its war, but some 120,000 remain. 

The Serbian authorities want to discuss taking Kosovo's northern part, with Albanian-inhabited regions of Serbia moving to Kosovo in exchange. Proponents of such "map-tidying" say that multi-ethnic states have failed in the Balkans. But they ignore the fact that, once governments start down this path, the process has no obvious end and pays no heed to the human rights of everyone involved. If Kosovo and Serbia begin serious talks about a redrawing of their borders, the impact on Balkan communities apart from those in the affected parts of Kosovo and Serbia could be profound. Bosnian Serb leaders would hold a referendum on the future of the Republika Srpska; Bosnian Croats would follow suit; and Bosniaks would then fight to prevent the dismemberment of their shared country. Over the border Serbia would clamp down on Bosniak nationalists in Sandzak who dream of incorporating that region into a Greater Bosnia. Meanwhile Albanians in western Macedonia and Montenegro would demand to join a Greater Albania. Proponents of that idea would also like to incorporate parts of northern Greece, whereas Greek nationalists would demand part of southern Albania.

One irony behind the mooted exchange is that most Kosovo Serbs actually live in enclaves in the south of Kosovo. So the agreement would not leave them living in Serbia, and they would probably have to leave their homes or else be driven out. But Serbian officials may be less concerned about their countrymen than about taking steps towards recognising Kosovo—and thus making their own hoped-for accession to the European Union (EU) easier. It may not concern them that an exchange of territories in the western Balkans could have huge ramifications. Hungarian nationalists, after all, remain unreconciled to the loss of Transylvania to Romania, and Romanian nationalists would like to redraw their borders to take in Moldova. There is a reason that "Balkanisation" has a bad name. As in the EU at large, lessening the relevance of national borders would seem wiser than redrawing them and, in the words of one senior EU official, "opening the gates to hell".