Pyotr ISKENDEROV
Russia’s Response to Kosovo Independence The first Balkan visit of the “Three”, a group of international middlemen ended quite like it could have been predicted. Aleksandr Botzan-Kharchenko, a special envoy of the Russian foreign minister for the Balkans, Frank Vizner, a special envoy of the White House for the problems of the Kosovo settlement, and Wolfgang Ischinger, a German diplomat representing the EU, were accorded the highest-level reception in Belgrade and Prisitina. They had talks with the leaders pf Serbia and Kosovo, presidents Boris Tadic and Fatmirko Seidiu, prime ministers Voislav Kostunica and Agim Ceku. Much was said about the difficulty and responsibility of the diplomatic mission. But again no concrete results were reported The gap between the positions of Belgrade and the Albanian separatists in Kosovo did not become narrower. The other way about, the unwillingness of the Albanians to agree to any concessions or compromise became even clearer. As Mssrs. Seidu and Ceku quite arrogantly stated, neither the issue of independence of the province nor its – even hypothetical - breakdown into the Serbian and Albanian parts that Herr Ischinger made a slip of as a version, could be on the agenda on negotiations with authorities in Belgrade. And Veton Surroi, the leader of the “Ora” faction of the Kosovo Assembly and, incidentally, a member of the Kosovo delegation at the planned negotiations, went as far as say that the 120 days the world community has given Pristina to continue negotiations could be put to better use to attend to more important things, like preparing the province for getting its independence, working out its Constitution and adopting other laws, approving Kosovo’s state symbols, its flag and anthem. Given that their supporters in the West have for more than eight years been hammering into the heads of the Albanian separatists the idea that Kosovo should no longer be a part of Serbia, it would have been hard to imagine that the results of the visits would be different. In the end, to intention to unilaterally proclaim the province independent has changed nothing in the situation. Are there not enough other self-proclaimed entities? What really counts is the response of the international community to the hint Herr Ischinger dropped and the nature of the conclusion to be made on it basis in the world’s capitals, including Moscow. The course of the development of the situation is such that by the year-end Kosovo can be acknowledged independent by not just a single country (as was the case with Turkey acknowledging the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus) or a little more than twenty nations (the case of Taiwan), but by rather several dozens of the world’s biggest states, including the United States, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. This would radically change the very essence of the problem of the non-acknowledged states, opening new vistas for different versions and scenarios. And the current supporters of the idea of Kosovo’s independence could find themselves in a situation whereby simultaneously with the clearly pro-Western state, Eurasia can witness emergence of other full-fledged subjects that would never feel sympathetic about either the United States, NATO or the European Union. It is not accidental that the western diplomats who refer to Kosovo as “the unique case” that has nothing to do with either the Transdniester Republic, Abkhazia, South Ossetia or Nagorno Karabakh, are trying to avoid detailed subject-matter discussions of the “uniqueness” of the Kosovo situation. The author of this article has had enough reasons to conclude this, talking both officially and in private with officials at the EU and NATO headquarters, as well as with people at the UN Mission for Kosovo’s temporary administration. As a rule, Western officials tend to reduce the problem to declarations of the complexity of the historical roots of the Kosovo problem and the impossibility for Serbs and Albanians to live side by side in a state they share. The conventionality of such formulations is seen with the naked eye. The deep historical roots are typical of all the ethnic problems of the Balkan states including Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania Should they be solved by way of separation of certain territories, the Balkans would turn into an image of Germany of the days of the feudal suzerainty. After all is said and done, relations between Greeks and Albanians on the eve of World War I were much worse than those of Serbs and Kosovars, however the official Tirana that suggests that Serbia discard Kosovo does not look prepared to give out its territory to the adjacent Greece. And in terms of fierceness, the ethnic civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was never like any conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Nevertheless the West did not acknowledge the right of independence of any of the self-proclaimed formations in that land, be it the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosna, or West Bosnia (Tzazin Kraina) or the Republic of Serbia. But whenever a western vis-a-vis hears anything about the doubts of the “unique character” of the Kosovo conflict we express in this article as well as information about the anti-Abkhazian and anti-Ossetian ethnic mopping-up operations the regular Georgian army was involved in in the 1990s, they immediately get bored and do their best to quit the conversation. Only a few recall the role of the UN civil administration in Kosovo. According to some officials at the NATO headquarters in Brussels (who insisted on hiding behind the screen of anonymity as people unauthorized to comment on the future status of the province), “the uniqueness” of the Kosovo case boils down to the fact that unlike the situation with the post-Soviet space, the UN mission is there. But then similar missions were in their time enacted in Namibia and East Timor, and both territories later turned from the UN mandate territories into sovereign states. The transformation of the status of Namibia and East Timor as the UN wards was very real. But not all the truth was told. The international representation there was introduced in the conditions of the factual occupation by the neighbouring countries, correspondingly South Africa and Indonesia. The Kosovo case is totally different. The UN mission was installed in a sovereign state, the Union Republic of Yugoslavia (URY). Yugoslavia exists no longer, but it its place at the United Nations automatically became Serbia’s. In other words the goal of the international presence was not putting an end to occupation but rendering assistance to the normalisation of the situation in the province, which according to Resolution 1244 dated June 10, 1999 of the UN Security Council was recognized as a part of the URY. Therefore, the UN mandate does not give anyone the right to change Kosovo’s international legal status. As soon as the West acknowledges Kosovo’s independence proclaimed by the Albanian separatists, the problem would automatically move onto a principally new plane. The destiny of all the self-proclaimed states in the contemporary world will be an issue on the international agenda. Should the United States and the EU decide to unilaterally acknowledge Pristina, they would deprive themselves of the right to have a say in the settlement of the conflicts in the Transdniester Republic, Abkhazia and South Ossetia as unbiased middlemen. That would give Russia the aces unbeatable by either Xavier Solana, or Condoleezza Rice, or Gordon Brown who are so fond of delivering lectures on objectivity and legality to Russia It is clear that the Albanian leaders in Kosovo think nothing of such complicated geopolitical scenarios. They are in a rush to legalise the black criminal “hole” in the middle of the Balkans, laundering their profits from drug trafficking, prostitution and trade in “live commodity”, gaining as well a direct access to the IMF and World Bank funds. But it appears that the West has so far failed to calculate the strategic aftermath of its present-day alliance with persons like Seidiu and Ceku. The United States, NATO and EU are gradually stepping into a trap, the keys to which will be Russia’s. It was not Moscow that launched the mechanism of reviewing the principles of the present-day world order. But it can and should speak its mind in the new situation. Not only Serbs are awaiting it. Other nations that are tired of the impunity and hypocrisy of the Western Pharisees are also in that number. If for the sake of its Albanian wards the West is ready to endanger all the world order, why should Moscow not summon courage to protect the nations that do not think they can do without Russia? While Veton Surroi and his same-minded Albanian associates instead of negotiating are openly sneering at the international middlemen, composing the anthem and sewing the flag of the independent Kosovo, it is time for the Russian diplomacy to come up with its response, the acknowledgement of independence of key Russia’s allies in the post-Soviet space. http://en.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=910
