Searching for a solution in Kosovo
James Forsyth 8:56am
With the UN deadline for a final status agreement on Kosovo passing without success, we are now into a dangerous and unpredictable phase. The Kosovans will declare independence at some point in the near future, although the word is that they will wait months not week before doing so. A Kosovan declaration of independence will be regarded as unacceptable by the Serbians—egged on by the Russians.
The challenge, as David Miliband acknowledged on Today this morning, is to find something to offer the Serbs to persuade them to accept Kosovan independence. Previously, Belgrade hinted heavily that membership of the European Union would make them take a softer line on Kosovo yet EU enlargement is now regarded as politically impossible. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, General Sir Mike Jackson, former commander of KFOR, suggested that one possible solution would be to transfer the territory north of the river Ibar, where the majority of the Serbian population of Kosovo live, back to Serbia.
Previous
Comments
Ray
December 10th, 2007 10:20amGeneral Jackson is right: partition is the only way this issue will ever be sorted, and is what should have been imposed at Rambouillet in 1999. Instead, NATO's attempt to hold Kosovo together in the name of 'human rights' only resulted in Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanians being replaced by Albanian ethnic cleansing of Serbs. If the two races cannot live together they will have to make do with living apart. Then our troops can be brought home and another of Tony Blair's grandstanding, half-baked, messianic military crusades can finally be wound up.
Milan
December 10th, 2007 10:22amAnybody wants Kosovo i Metohija independence to happen, can’t bypass legal implications of UN Resoluion 1244. Legal implication is that Kosovo is Serbian land. Another legal implication is that 250,000 Serbs must return safely home back to Kosovo i Metohija. If international force is not up to task then they have to leave Kosovo i Metohija. Pushing independence by any mean will just bring violence and instability.
Milan
December 10th, 2007 10:24amAnybody wants Kosovo i Metohija independence to happen, can’t bypass legal implications of UN Resoluion 1244. Legal implication is that Kosovo is Serbian land. Another legal implication is that 250,000 Serbs must return safely home back to Kosovo i Metohija. If international force is not up to task then they have to leave Kosovo i Metohija. Pushing independence by any mean will just bring violence and instability.
David Lindsay
December 10th, 2007 4:07pmIf Kosovo declares independence, then the Serbian army will be straight in there, with the full assurance of unlimited Russian backing. And that will be the end of the neocon-backed separatist aspirations of pimping, heroin-trafficking Wahhabi wearing black shirts in deference to their SS fathers and grandfathers. Nobody is going to risk World War Three for the likes of them. Are they?
Max Kaye
December 10th, 2007 5:09pmOoooh I'm coming over all funny-like: I think I agree with David Lindsay*. I hope this doesn't become a habit.
(*Excepting the bash at neocons - I think the EU - and our own government is far more to blame for encouraging the emergence of a Greater Albania - just recall the pompous Robin Cook pronouncing the place "Kosova" just to annoy the Serbs).
Tanuki
December 10th, 2007 6:18pmThat NATO/EU got involved on the side of the albanians in Serbia was IMHO one of the great politico-military mistakes of the last decade. Alas I can now see the inevitable slide to albanian-Serb independence - and the acceptance of a totally bogus 'Islamic state of kosovo' when it applies for EU membership. Oncethey're in the EU they'll migrate West....
steve
December 11th, 2007 12:55pmI can't see any other option, in a least worst sort of way, I'm afraid. An independent Kosovo (maybe with a redrawing of the Northern Border), sounds preferable to some near endless, Chechnya style bloodbath, which appears to be the only other realistic probability.
David Lindsay
December 11th, 2007 2:28pmMax Kaye, the EU is a neocon-sponsored project - just see the Statement of Principles of the Henry Jackson Society. But it is in any case the neocons directly who have done the most to dismember Yugoslavia, and who are still at it. They have also moved on to Belgium, they have their eye on Russia, they are sowing discontent in Anglophone Canada, and they will turn their attention to the United Kingdom and to Spain soon enough. All the coverage of potential precedents have referred to places like Scotland and Catalonia. But Kosovo is not in anything like that league. If Kosovo becomes independent, then there will be no reason at all for any arbitrary administrative unit to declare itself such as soon as it has a Muslim majority. How about the former Metropolitan County of West Yorkshire, which still exists for ceremonial purposes? And why only a Muslim majority? Why not the southern-most counties of the United States once they have Hispanic majorities, if they don't already have them? Both a Muslim majority in West Yorkshire and Hispanic majority in, say, Southern California or Southern Florida will be, and might already be, a direct product of the "free" market. So, is anyone still saying that that market is conservative? No, it is not.