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Some time in the next decade, two European countries will become members of the European Union. They will be called Serbia and Kosovo (or possibly Kosova, the spelling preferred by Kosovan Albanians). Chroniclers will note that one of these countries used to be part of the other. The Serbia that becomes a member of the European Union will be a rump Serbia, a shadow of its former self, like Austria after the first world war. This outcome will have been reached through a long vale of blood, sweat and tears. Over the next few weeks, as the issue of independence for Kosovo comes to the boil, we are certain to have more sweat and tears, but we can, with luck and good judgment on all sides, avoid the shedding of more blood.…  Seguir leyendo »

At a most inopportune time, the Balkans are back. On Dec. 10, the U.S.-E.U.-Russian negotiating team tasked with getting the Serbs and Albanians to agree on Kosovo's future status will report to the United Nations that it has failed. A few weeks later Kosovo's government will proclaim that Kosovo is an independent nation -- a long overdue event.

The United States and most of the European Union (led by Britain, France and Germany) will recognize Kosovo quickly. Russia and its allies will not. Kosovo's eight-year run as the biggest-ever U.N. project will end with great tension and a threat of violence that could spread to Bosnia.…  Seguir leyendo »

This one we can see coming. On December 10 the second round of so far abortive talks on Kosovan independence will expire, bringing to a crisis the unfinished last chapter of the west's 1990s "Balkanisation of the Balkans". In Brussels this week European ministers will make a final effort to forestall the decision of the newly elected Kosovan government to declare unilateral independence of Serbia. Since Serbia is equally determined not to grant it, irresistible force has met immovable object.

This is not a clash of tinpot dictators but one of democratic outcomes. Kosovo's independence is the clear wish of its electors, just as it is not the wish of Serbia's.…  Seguir leyendo »

Vilified by the west in the 1990s as the bad boy of Europe, Serbia says the boot is on the other foot these days.

According to Belgrade, it is the US, Britain and France who now endanger stability in the western Balkans by rashly backing Kosovo's independence. Their policy is irresponsible, illegal, and self-defeating, Serb officials claim.

Non-partisan observers are blunter still: they say independence simply will not work.

Speaking at the House of Commons today, Vuk Jeremic, Serbia's foreign minister, warned that seven years of domestic reforms and political good behaviour since Slobodan Milosevic's fall would be undermined if Serbia were forcibly partitioned.…  Seguir leyendo »

With Kosovo's US-backed ethnic Albanian leadership edging doggedly towards a unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia next month, Belgrade has opened a dangerous new front in last-ditch efforts to cling on to its rebel province. Twelve years after the end of a war that cost 100,000 lives and displaced millions, the Bosnian nightmare is returning to haunt the chancelleries of Europe.

In case anyone missed the connection, Serbia's Russian-backed nationalist prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, spelled it out last week: "Preserving Kosovo and the Serb Republic (the eastern half of Bosnia-Herzegovina) are now the most important goals of our state and national policy."…  Seguir leyendo »

Slowly, but not yet surely, Kosovo is moving towards independence. Whether this is a foolish claim or a soon to be confirmed fact is highly contested. But its shadow hangs over today's meeting of Serbian and Albanian negotiators in New York to discuss the future of a territory that was the focus of Europe's most recent war.An effort to find an agreed solution failed earlier this year when Russia said it would veto a UN plan, worked out by Finland's former president Martti Ahtisaari, to authorise conditional independence for Kosovo under EU supervision. In the face of the threatened veto, the EU wobbled.…  Seguir leyendo »

An important set of meetings will take place today at the State Department and the White House that may well determine the future stability of southeast Europe and the integrity of the international system. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is set to meet with the "unity team" of Kosovo leaders to decide the way forward on the status of Kosovo, now that it is clear Russia will veto any U.N. Security Council resolution that puts Kosovo on a path to independence.

Eight years ago, I served as President Bill Clinton's chief of staff when our administration faced a similar dilemma. Slobodan Milosevic had launched a campaign of murder and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo that had to be stopped.…  Seguir leyendo »

Exactly how far Russia will go in defence of Serbia's rights in Kosovo is a question of pressing importance, now UN security council negotiations to grant consensual, conditional independence to the breakaway province have ground to an ignominious halt.

Western countries including Britain and France - prime movers in the 1999 Nato intervention - have consistently underestimated Russian resolve on this issue. By tabling a UN resolution, they tried to call Moscow's bluff. But President Vladimir Putin icily stared them down. On Friday, they blinked first.

Previous miscalculations over Kosovo nearly caused a physical collision in June 1999, when Russian paratroopers made an overland dash to occupy Pristina airport, thereby pre-empting Nato's peacekeepers.…  Seguir leyendo »