b92.net <http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2017&mm=08&dd=16&nav_id=102081>
"Big powers need crisis to keep Balkans on leash" - Politics 7-8 minutes _____ Whatever model is offered as a platform by Belgrade to solve the decades-old Kosovo and Metohija puzzle, it will not be liked by "world powers." Source: Tanjug Wednesday, August 16, 2017 | 09:43 (Thinkstock) The daily Vecernje Novosti writes this, adding that this is the case because bringing this painful topic to an end would mean the loss of a lot of leverage that these powers are using to try to keep Balkan nations "on a leash." This is how analysts the newspaper spoke to interpreted the information that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic's call to have a broad national dialogue on Kosovo is not looked at favorably "neither in the East nor in the West" - while maintaining the status quo was "an ideal option for them." Aleksandar Gajic, an associate at the Institute for European Studies, told Vecernje Novosti that it is not in the interest of certain "big players" to pacify the Kosovo issue "because they want to continue to arbitrate and maintain their dominant position in the Balkans." "It doesn't even suit them to have direct negotiations between Albanians and Serbs, as this diminishes their influence," says Gajic. "For example, it suits Germany more to solve this question before Serbia joins the EU, so that the problem is not brought to the Union, while it is in the interest of America, which does not want a stable EU, that Serbia joins the EU with the open Kosovo issue," he stresses. Russia, on the other hand, has a flexible attitude and is not in advance against the dialogue - "but is aware that, if certain concessions are made in that dialogue, then they are possible in some other areas too, and that the principles advocated there can be used as a parameter for similar issues in other regions of the world," says Gajic. According to political analyst Dejan Vuk Stankovic, the pressure from great powers in terms of the initiated dialogue "does not arise from the fact that someone does not like a specific solution that is proposed in our public, but because the goal of the dialogue is to achieve national unity." "Great powers most easily realize their interests via those who do not necessarily have to be a part of that social compromise, and if it was achieved, they would be deprived of that lever," says Stankovic. "Therefore, a much better option for them is to have an internal 'political war' here - the greater the level of internal conflicts, he more easily they defend their goals," Stankovic told the Belgrade daily, Tanjug reported. British Foreign Office official, parliamentarians to visit <http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2017&mm=08&dd=17&nav_id=102101> Permanent Under Secretary of the British Foreign Office Simon McDonald will visit Serbia on September 11 and 12.
