Two and a half years have passed since Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia. After an initial wave of recognition by a significant number of countries around the world, mainly from the western democracies, the recognition process has almost stalled in the last twelve months. Kosovo is in limbo; supported by the United States and the EU heavyweights, but with its path to UN membership firmly barred by Russia and China on the Security Council, with a clear majority of countries that either oppose of haven’t decided about its recognition.
Serbia had taken the issue of unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo to the ICJ last year, believing that the court’s advisory opinion would back its claim that such a move has breached the international law. Kosovo declared independence in 2008 after being under UN administration since June 1999.
Last month the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled that Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence did not violate international law.
The strongest disputer of this ruling, Serbia’s ministry of foreign affairs, has emphasized numerous times that it will consider the decision as irrelevant if it doesn’t satisfy its interests, a clear indicator about Serbian policy of just buying time while taking such initiatives as this court case.
There are 69 UN member states who have recognized Kosovo’s Independence, which was declared on February 17 2008, based on the document known as Ahtisaaris package, which was a set of recommendations for solution of the Kosovo issue that was drafted after a process of negotiations between the political leaderships of Kosovo and Serbia, under the auspices of the UN Security Council. Since the ICJ has given its opinion about Kosovo’s Independence, it is considered to be a purely political act by the Serbian representatives.
Officials of the Serbian Ministry for Kosovo told Foreign Policy Journal that “The Serbian government has defined its policy towards Kosovo and Metohija, which is well known to Kosovo Serbs, and we are not giving it up.”
European Union officials have spoken openly against any discussion of the already resolved status of Kosovo, now an independent country in the western Balkans.
Serbian deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic has admitted that his country has been exposed to new European pressures to force Serbia to recognize Kosovo’s independence.
Djelic said last week in a statement to the Serb media that his country’s candidacy file for membership of the European Union may fall victim to some new political bids related to insistence of some European countries on the importance of Serbia’s recognition of Kosovo’s independence.
Djelic pointed out that Serbia’s request for official candidacy for membership in the European Union may be hindered by some European countries, which demand that Serbia must resolve its dispute with Kosovo before formally submitting a request for membership in the European Union.
Serbia hasn’t given up its claim to Kosovo, although it lost control over its former province after a war. The U.S. and most EU nations support Kosovo’s statehood, while
Russia has sided with Belgrade in the dispute.
American, European and influential Muslim nations in the world like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, have said that the political status of Kosovo is resolved.
The current rhetoric from both Belgrade and Pristina is uncompromising. Serbia’s commitment after the ICJ has given its opinion, is about requesting from the UN General Assembly to pass a resolution demanding new talks on Kosovo’s status, and it will be soon decided in a forthcoming meeting of the UN General Assembly. European countries are still asking the Serbian government to remove the claim over Kosovo as its territory on its textual content of the resolution.
The government in Pristina says its sovereignty is not negotiable, and that Serbia is refusing to confront reality. Pristina has repeatedly declared against any political initiative that would question Kosovo’s status, while working for recognition of its independence. The most telling example of this pattern in Pristina’s politics throughout the post-war period is the process of negotiations in Vienna itself.
However, the country’s President has already opened the doors for new. “Kosovo is ready to talk for practical issues with our neighbourhood countries, such as it is, Serbia. We can start negotiations as two neighbour states,” Kosovo’s President Fatmir Sejdiu said.
One of the daily newspapers in Kosovo has reported that negotiations between Pristina and Belgrade are about to start and will be held in Oher, in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
The developments or the affairs around the negotiations between the two countries are deepening the confusion, as just few days ago when opposition’s political representatives of Kosovo, leaded by AAK (Alliance for the Future of Kosova) told the public that lots of secret talks between Pristina and Belgrade have already been developed, but they failed to put forth any evidence.
Lately Serb officials have been banned from visiting Kosovo. Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci told reporters in a press conference, “This decision is made in order to prevent further political provocations from Serbian government officials in the territory of Kosovo.”.
The government of Kosovo has recently allowed Serbian deputy Prime Minister, Ivica Dacic, to visit Kosovo only on religious grounds, after he visited the Monastery of Decan, but he also addressed political matters in Gracanica, a Serbian majority town, in outskirts of Pristina.
A declaration, signed by the Association of Municipalities of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, was distributed on August 17 by an unknown Serbian organization, to Serbs in northern Kosovo. The five-page declaration says: “As the free will of Serbian people, the assembly approves the declaration of independence of the [Serbian] territories, from the creation, so called the Republic of Kosovo.”
Serbian political representatives of the Kosovo Serbs have described the so-called Independence Declaration of Serbian Territories in Kosovo as a provocation. Rada Trajkovic, a local Serb leader, quoted by Balkan Insight, said no one in Kosovo considered the declaration serious.
The so called Declaration of Independence of the Serbs in Kosovo did not demand the partitioning of Kosovo, “as long as the province of Kosovo is part of Serbia based on international law”. The declaration describes the Republic of Kosovo as a state created by genocide committed against non-Albanians.
Marko Jaksic, president of the Assembly of Serbian Municipalities and Towns of Kosovo, agreed that the political aim of the declaration was to test the opinion on the issue of possible partition, reported by Belgrade daily Vecernje Novosti.
Also, Kosovo’s daily newspaper Express claimed that either Jaksic or Milan Ivanovic, members of the Serbian National Council for Kosovo, were one of the authors engaged in drafting the mentioned declaration.
The Serbian Ministry for Kosovo, financed by Belgrade, condemned the declaration and called on Kosovo Serbs not to respond to “provocations by Pristina and irresponsible individuals from the Serbian community”.
Kosovo’s Interior Minister Bajram Rexhepi on Friday warned that security forces would carry out security operations against some areas that include Serb minorities refusing to recognize the government. He told Radio Pristina that security forces intend to enforce the authority of the government.
Rexhepi called on Kosovo Serbs to renounce their loyalty to Serbia, and to pledge allegiance to their new country and benefit from full political and constitutional rights instead.
The minister regarded tension caused by Serbia over Kosovo’s sovereignty as over, explaining there was no justification for any further perplexity and warned that Kosovo Serbs could lose their right to take part in the country’s political process if they should choose to rebel.
Although the authors or the political statement that talks about the independence of the north have not come public, Pristina has taken the warning seriously, officials from the Ministry of Interior Affairs of the Republic of Kosovo told Foreign Policy Journal.
“The Government has been willing to make a decision for armed intervention in case the Serbs decide to join Serbia or to declare the independence of this part of Kosovo,” the ministry told the Journal, for the possibility of armed intervention to protect the territorial integrity of the Republic of Kosovo. “The international community has been notified,” said officials.
“We are ready for armed response”, Interior Minister of Kosovo Bajram Rexhepi has been quoted as saying in the Belgrade daily Danas.
On his request to EU country states to recognize Kosovo’s declaration of Independence, PM Hashim Thaci said, “The people of my country did not arrive at the decision to declare their independence lightly or in a political vacuum”.
“We were long deprived of the most basic human rights, and in 1999 subject to a murderous campaign of ethnic cleansing from a Serbian government led by Slobodan Milosevic,” Thaci said.
Under the regime of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, Belgrade in 1990 put an end to decades of broad autonomy for Kosovo Albanians and introduced direct rule in the province, where minority Serbs led all institutions. Calls for renewal of autonomy by ethnic Albanians were rejected. This led to armed rebellion by Kosovo Albanian groups, followed by stern Serbian repression in 1998 and 1999. The international response came by way of 11 weeks of NATO bombing of Serbian installations. The war in Kosovo erupted in 1998 when Serbia launched a brutal crackdown against the Albanian civilians, as well as people fighting for liberation of their country from Serbia. The UN administration was introduced after 11 weeks of NATO bombardment of Serbia due to Belgrade’s repression against two million Kosovo Albanians.
Since 1999 Kosovo still remains a constant international political conflict between Kosovo Albanians and Serbian governors.
Reading this article one would nearly forget that there are still 220,000 refugees (mostly Roma and Serbs) who cannot return to Kosovo. Their return is consistely obstructed by the regime in Pristina.
Their attitude towards Kosovo’s remaining minorities is just as hostile. Half of the Ahtisaari Plan still hasn’t been implemented. And the Pristina government has been very creative in thinking up excuses for discrimination that evade the law. Vedat’s quote from Rexhepi who says that “Kosovo Serbs could lose their right to take part in the country’s political process if they should choose to rebel” is a clear indication how eager the Pristina government is to find more excuses for discrimination.
In light of those circumstances it is not surpising that Kosovo’s north has refused to be governed by Pristina. It is also not surprising that Serbia has refused to recognize Kosovo in those circumstances: it would mean their seal of approval for the maltreatment of Kosovo’s Serbs.
When one considers the ICJ verdict closely it was a major blow to Kosovo. When reading the verdict it is hard not to notice that the judges have sympathy for Kosovo. Yet when it comes to the verdict they just say that there was nothing in international law that forbids a random bunch of Albanians to proclaim independence. They evade the questions whether that independence itself is legal or whether the countries that recognize it are within international law. Given their sympathies one can only conclude that their findings in this respect most probably were negative for the Pristina government.
viewpoint of diplomacy and challenges of Kosovo by Valdrin Dervishaj
Republic of Kosovo, currently, the youngest state in the worldThe extended border with four countries, two of them have been in continuous conflictthis fact did reasonable vantage point for hegemonic attempts of its neighborswhen it comes to the Republic of Kosova inadvertently mind goes to the Cardinal Rashelie,who let to world diplomacy an axiom “the power of the state depends on the neighbors’This made it clear that what has happened in Kosovo.political stress caused by the destructive policies by a part of the neighboring of Kosovo, continuous invader that were present for centuries by paralyzing all possibilities for organized society but not paralyzed even to desire and willingness to build the state and to reflect on world peace and stabilityShares of political movements and armed groups which made opposing the invaders who had tendency for ethnic cleansing and wiping of indigenous culturealthough these movements often faild bad but never lost popular supportPages of dark history of Kosovo finally cameLast page mark the end of being with no defined status for this nationOpened a new book to be called “state building”In Kosovo at the same time born independence and diplomacyThis diplomacy that will be faced with a mature diplomacy but fortunatly led by the logic of force and the destructiveKosovo diplomacy a little informed about diplomatic premises, the circumstances, the process became the last card that was the logic of defense and diplomacy in support of friendly countriesBecause every missed opportunity will not return because of changing circumstances that made us a victim of ourselvesDiplomatic battles characterize the political scene, the Serbian diplomacy tends to challenge diplomacy in Kosovo by placing in no comfortable positionSerbian diplomacy with negative logic object with major international institutions, global powers, decisions brought by a special institution created to bring justice to the specific issuesdecisions of the institution that brings justice to the contested world of irrational excuses biggest violator of international law in the world
freely we can call Serbia ikon of negative diplomay
look like serb apologists are already here. Not satisfied with mass slaughter of all their neighbors (crotia and bosnia) they tried the same tactic again is kosovo. Help finally arrived from the americans and now serbs are crying wolf. Instead of admitting their role in genocide, serbia continues to protect war criminals. And they wonder why no one wants to live with them. Why would any one want to live with a bunch of rabid dogs that serbs have proven themselves to be. UN is still busy discovering new mass burial sites from the last time serbs were let loose on rest of humanity.
Wim,
you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. There are not 220,000 Kosovar refugees in Serbia, check your fact. The Serbian government plays games when it comes to numbers, majority of those people are refugees from elsewhere that Belgrade labels and relabels them.
Reading this article by Vedat a smile come to my lips (unwantingly). The FPJ is here to (and I quote): ” Foreign Policy Journal is an online publication dedicated to providing critical analysis of U.S. foreign policy outside of the standard framework offered by political officials and the mainstream corporate media. FPJ offers original news, analysis, and opinion commentary from perspectives all too lacking in the public debate on key foreign policy issues. ”
With all the respect, I do not see any critical analysis, or any analysis for that matter let alone a opinion or a commentary. It looks more like a copy and paste of facts (or “facts”) and comments of other people with no critical approach or opinion whatsoever, so I cannot help myself wondering how serious the FPJ is about the articles that appear here.
Now commenting on Vedat’s “article”, I would have expected that he at least would bother to read (carefully) the courts decision as well as the opinion given by each of the judges. Only then he would have been able to understand that in this particular case Serbia itself dug its own grave (if I may say) asking the wrong question. I am not going to debate whether Kosovo should be independent, whatever my opinion is it does not really matter.
It is indisputable that there is a large number of IDPs and recently there have been incidents in the returnee site of Zallq/Žac area, incidents that certainly do not indicate a willingness to integrate or any signs of reconciliation.
Trying to be a realist, and since the US and EU have decided that the UDI was legal, my opinion does not matter. But as political being I would only consider discussing how one can manage this new reality, a reality that unfortunately for the Albanian majority includes a large number of Serbs RAE and others (Bosniaks, Croats, Goranies).
Reading this article I think you can find a lot of informations, and I think also we (readers) need to have just another aproach of reading, in order to understand the article of this writer.
You/we like it or don’t is just another story, but the hints here are very clear and very confident.
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