Hashim Thaci's role in NATO intervention (Photo)

According to authors, the international community at the beginning of the war in Kosovo was very sceptical of a possible NATO intervention in Kosovo. Even some British Parliament deputies, according to authors, accused KLA leader Hashim Thaci of wanting to include NATO as a support force for KLA soldiers on the ground. In a phone call between former US President Bill Clinton, and former British Prime Minister, this stance of the West becomes even clearer. We will not allow ourselves to become the KLA air force”.

This, according to the authors, became an official position for a while in Washington. The authors quote former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman Alastair Campbell, who had been at a joint meeting in the presence of Defence Secretary Georg Robertson, shortly after the massacre in Recak. They agreed that they would not bomb at the moment because there was no political process ... and they ( The NLA aims for NATO to be their defence weapon and bomb Milosevic for them”, Campbell writes.

The authors write that unlike Bosnia, Thaci soon understood the importance of NATO intervention as an opportunity to stop bloodshed and ensure the will of the people. Although this seemed impossible at first, Thaci never gave up the intervention of NATO and its co-operation with the KLA. “Thaci realised it was only NATO's direct military action that would stop Milosevic”, the authors write.

Hoyes and Jagger write that Thaci was also involved in improving the KLA image, which was originally seen with scepticism in the West. The KLA, they say, also did not allow the infiltrate of radical religious groups in their ranks. KLA political representative Hashim Thaci, according to British authors, was among the only ones who in Rambouille thought of Kosovo's independence and NATO intervention, while for the international community and part of the Kosovo delegation, it was utopic. P

Or, even after the enormous pressure on it, Thaci, according to authors, had never given up on the people's right to self-rule and the next point for NATO to intervene if Serbia did not sign this agreement.

Boyes and Jagger write how Thaci convinced KLA commanders to sign the agreement in Rambouille, which guaranteed NATO's intervention in Kosovo. “ ...if you want the Kalashnikovs to become F-16 bombers, then we must sign or finish in Kosovo and be forgotten by the world”, Thaci told the KLA commanders a few days before the signing of the agreement. After signing the Kosovo side in Paris and not signing the Serbian side, NATO intervened militarily in Kosovo.