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Comment: Kosovo Diplomacy in Suspended Animation

24 05 2007  

The process of reaching a deal for Kosovo seems to be nearing its end - with no deal in sight.


By Tim Judah in London

There is a stock image from cartoons that springs to mind. A character runs over a cliff and then, for a split second, he remains in suspended animation with his legs still pumping furiously. Then he falls.

In the last week or so, the pronouncements of diplomats from Washington to Moscow coupled with those of politicians in Belgrade and Pristina give reason to wonder whether we are now in that moment of suspended animation.

For the last year, western diplomats dealing with the Kosovo issue have worked on a key assumption about Russia. This was, that in the end, it would name its price for agreeing to the independence of Kosovo and that a deal would be done whereby some form of trade would be made.

While Russia has been cooperative with the western countries involved with the Kosovo issue until now, and indeed supported the mission of Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president appointed by the UN to find a solution there, now that a decision should be made, Russia has balked.

According to usually well informed sources, Russia did tentatively float the idea of cooperation over Kosovo with the US in exchange for its backing down over its planned missile shield, to which it objects. This is believed to have happened in talks with Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, in Moscow ten days ago. The idea made no headway.

Since then the possibility of a compromise being struck over Kosovo has narrowed significantly. Some weeks ago diplomats were tentatively floating the idea of such a resolution at the UN.

The theory was that the Security Council would adopt a new resolution on Kosovo to replace the existing one, 1244, which currently regulates its status.

This resolution would not be like the current western drafts which, although not explicitly mentioning independence for the Albanian-majority province, would clearly open the way for its international recognition.

The idea was that if the Russians would not agree to that, and they have made it clear over and over again in the past few weeks that they would not, then they might agree to a compromise and indeed they have indicated they would be open to this.

Such a resolution would do several things. It would adopt much of the plan formulated by Mr Ahtisaari, but the parts relating to sovereignty would not be there and indeed the resolution would specifically say that this issue would be looked at again in a later review process.

The resolution would also terminate the mandate of the current UN mission in Kosovo and would thus usher in the planned EU one to cover police, justice and customs and the International Civilian Office, or ICO to be headed by the International Civilian Representative or ICR.

The job of the ICR would be similar to that of the High Representative in Bosnia - that of a powerful international governor-general.

It seems, however, that this idea has picked up little traction and while it would be a logical compromise EU officials are against it because Kosovo Albanians might, with reason, see it as simply the status quo, albeit presented to them in a different wrapper. In that case, the mission might well risk failure and for this reason the risk of taking it on under such circumstances would seem too great.

Why is a resolution so important? The answer is that without it there is no way for the planned EU mission and ICO to come to Kosovo. The UN mission there is now preparing to leave and its credibility as a major actor in local politics is exhausted.

So, where does this leave us? Some are still pinning their hopes on a deal being struck over Kosovo at the G8 summit in Germany in two weeks. However, similar hopes rose before Condoleezza Rice's trip to Moscow and then again before the ill-fated EU-Russian summit in Samara a week ago.

Now, to add to the complications the UK is set to demand that Russia extradite a suspect in the murder of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko.

In an interview to be broadcast on Friday by the UN in Kosovo's Serbian language programme Danas i Sutra, Andrey Dronov, the head of the Russian office in Pristina, reiterates that Russia is insisting on a solution which would be acceptable to both Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians but adds, "The position of Moscow on the status of Kosovo first of all reflects the national interests of Russia."

Russia now appears to have put itself in a position whereby anything that opened the door to Kosovo's independence would be a humiliation; therefore its interests seem to dictate that it has no choice but to continue to block this.

By contrast, the US is clearly backing away from the idea that if Russia does this it would encourage Kosovo to declare independence unilaterally and it would then recognise it. It is now being understood that this is a move fraught with problems. The biggest one is that EU states would be split on the issue or even that none might follow the US.

In any event, recognition in this case, without a UN Security Council resolution would, as noted, mean no replacement of the UN by the EU and ICO and thus it may be that the diplomats now deem it prudent to leave the weak but existing UN system in place until the matter can be resolved.

When will that be? Nobody knows, and for the moment none of the diplomats are prepared to confront the question of whether Russia has indeed successfully sunk the Ahtisaari plan and could thus be about to plunge the region into a new cycle of instability or even violence.

One thing is certain though. Russian president Vladimir Putin has found a curious political bedfellow in the guise of Albin Kurti the leader of Kosovo's Movement for Self-Determination. The youthful Mr Kurti always rejected the Ahtisaari negotiation process which eventually led to the current plan because he said there was no point in engaging in it because it would ultimately aim at compromise and Kosovo Albanians could not compromise on the question of independence.

Mr Putin is proving Mr Kurti's point by demanding just such a thing, even though no analyst, diplomat or politician in the region, except for Serbia, has ever been heard expressing the view that such a thing is possible or realistic.

So now, barring an unforeseen breakthrough, the question is how long the diplomats can keep running on thin air before they admit that the resolution of the issue is to be formally postponed.

Tim Judah, a leading Balkan commentator, is the author of The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, and Kosovo: War and Revenge. Balkan Insight is BIRN's online publication.