Bildt: Northern Abandonion Does Not Go to Kosovo Convention

Can the conflict between Serbia and Kosovo be resolved through an exchange of territories? Former special representative of the United Nations Organisation for the Balkans, Carl Bildt, has said, in an interview for the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, that he considers this idea an illusion.

According to Bildt, it is illusion to think there might be monoethnic states.

The exchange of a zone in northern Kosovo, with the Presevo and Bujanovac area in southern Serbia, would affect tens of thousands of people, Bildt has said.

Asked whether Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, and Serbia's Aleksandar Vuciq, seriously want such an exchange, Bildt has said he is listening to “things against saying”.

The more details there are, the harder it becomes to realise such a plan, Bildt has said for FAZ.

Bildt has estimated that the <x0 political system in Kosovo is very divided, and that it is difficult to approve from the Kosovo Parliament a plan that includes secession from its northern Kosovo”.

According to Bildt, the fact that Washington and the European Union are partially adopting such a solution, or not opposing it, encourages all politicians in the region who dream of creating monoethnic states.

But he has said he strongly doubts that today's America, whose attitude for the Balkans (not changes of borders and not the monoethnic states) is more guaranteed, would want to take responsibility for the consequences of its policies.

This, according to Bildt, will be left to Europe, which, he estimates, “is unfortunately inactive in relation to this matter”.

Bildt has said he does not believe it is realistic that the consequences of a territorial exchange can be isolated.

According to him, if Presheva can become part of Kosovo, the same may once require Tetovo, in Macedonia.