MOSCOW. (Alla Yazkova for RIA Novosti) - During their meeting in early July, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush will most likely discuss the future of Kosovo.
Russia and the United States differ on that issue, and have so far not found common ground for a compromise.
The third draft resolution on Kosovo, proposed by the United States, Britain and France for the UN's consideration in mid-June, gives Belgrade and Pristina four months to settle their differences. If they fail to come to terms, a slightly revised scenario, based on special envoy Martti Ahtisaari's plan to grant Kosovo independence under temporary international control without Serbia's consent, will be submitted to the UN Security Council. It does not take into account the arguments of Russia and Serbia.
Moscow objects to sovereignty for Kosovo, a predominantly ethnic Albanian region that has been a UN protectorate since NATO expelled Serb forces from the province in 1999, arguing that the move would violate Serbia's territorial integrity and set a dangerous international precedent for other breakaway regions, including in the former Soviet Union.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said that pushing through independence for Kosovo by giving a four-month respite for negotiations was an unacceptable solution. Vitaly Churkin, Russia's representative at the UN, said Moscow would not support the new plan either.
Moscow does not seem to be eager to solve the Kosovo problem, one of the most painful in global politics. Why?
Since the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 in 1999, which reaffirmed "the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" (now Serbia), the international community has not formulated a clear view of the situation in Kosovo or the province's readiness to assume the burden of independence. Tentative answers to these questions can be found in the televised debates organized in Pristina in 2005-2006, ahead of the international talks on the status of Kosovo.
They make it clear that little has been done in Kosovo to promote economic development in the eight years since 1999 despite international assistance, which amounted to some 1 billion euros annually at the initial stage, but was later cut.
The province's infrastructure is in a bad state, without railways and small and medium-sized businesses to process agricultural output, but rife with corruption and incompetent local authorities. The situation is complicated by drug and weapons trafficking, which makes Kosovo a "gray zone."
One of the key items of the televised debates was the issue of Kosovo Albanians' identity, which could be used as the core for uniting all other Albanian territories around Kosovo. Nobody mentioned that this would threaten the territorial integrity of Macedonia and Montenegro, where Albanian minorities live in compact groups, as well as the northern territories of Albania. This is why many experts, including Western ones, say the Kosovo Albanian problem is a Balkan time bomb.
Aware of this, a group of EU analysts proposed in 2004 a plan for solving the Kosovo problem on the basis of the "standards before status" principle, which provides for creating effective state machinery before granting the status of independence. The European Commission approved the idea, but the requisite standards have not been formulated to this day, preventing the solution of the status problem.
Of special concern to everyone is the future of non-Albanians who live in Kosovo, including Serbs, Gypsies and other minorities (about 180,000 in all). If the province is granted independence, they will be left defenseless, or will have to flee their homes, provoking a humanitarian catastrophe comparable to the one that hit the region in 1999. As of now, the more than 200,000 refugees (displaced persons) from Kosovo constitute a major problem for Serbia and the whole of Europe.
The tragic experience of World War II encouraged the international community to formalize the principle of the inviolability of borders as a cornerstone of international law. This prevented a host of ethnic conflicts and "small predatory wars" in Europe. Before revising that principle, the world should elaborate a coordinated and balanced stance taking into account all possible consequences.
When Kosovars, as Kosovo Albanians call themselves, say they "will continue fighting for independence with arms in hand," this is one more argument against granting independence to the province.
The global media have recently reported that Ahtisaari would not take part in possible talks between Belgrade and Pristina, advocated by Russia, which puts in question the objectivity of his previous mediation.
There have been questions about his objectivity before. In August 2006, during a discussion held by Serbs and Albanians, Ahtisaari said that Serbs must give in because they are guilty as a nation.
The experience of the 20th century shows that such accusations have led to grave consequences and bloody conflicts, and therefore nobody must be allowed to pin a feeling of national guilt on any group of people. Moreover, in 2000 the democratic forces of Serbia overthrew Slobodan Milosevic, who was accused of provoking the Yugoslav tragedy in the 1990s, and sent him to the Hague Tribunal to be tried for war crimes.
The Ahtisaari plan is a bad solution to the Kosovo problem. To sever Kosovo from Serbia would amount to inflicting an unhealing wound on it, partly because the majority of Serbs view Kosovo as the cradle of the Serbian nation that still has very many historical Serbian monuments. But granting Kosovo the status of an autonomous territory in Serbia is not acceptable to Kosovo Albanians.
The solution can be found only through a joint search for a status that will be based on global precedents, such as associated membership or federacy, which provides for asymmetric relations with the larger state but autonomy in internal affairs.
Temporary confederacy is another possibility for the period until Serbia and Kosovo join the European Union.
One way or another, Serbia should have the right to protect its compatriots and historical monuments.
All of the above issues can and must be discussed, while the adoption of a hasty decision is fraught with unpredictable consequences for the Balkans and the rest of Europe. Kosovo will certainly create a new precedent in Europe, but we must do our best for it to be a positive one.
Alla Yazkova is head of the Center for Mediterranean and Black Sea Studies, Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
