Haxhiu: Thaci's plan for exchange of territories means Kosovo must give part of northern Serbia

President Hashim Thaci has come to the fore last weeks with the idea that in the Brussels talks, he will present the Presevo Valley requirement for joining Kosovo. According to him, this in no option would allow Kosovo to give land in exchange. But, journalist Haxhiu, known for good reports with Thaci, says that, however, implies that Kosovo will also be scrapped. In an interview for MAPO, Haxhi has tried to explain what no one is doing to even American analysts. Hadziu, in this interview, has not mentioned or analyzed Merkel's stance on not changing borders.

After a phase of uncertainty and postponement of processes and agendas related to the Balkans, it seems that a sense of cyphalizing approach, solution to the type of Macedonia's final name, Greece-Albania or things on the horizon: correction of the Kosovo border- Serbia or farther away, Republika Srpska's status. In principle, without entering into concrete matters: Is it a final of long processes or of a new situation in the Balkans?

One of the main political components The EU in the Western Balkans is in the hands of the strengthening power of the enlargement process to complete all bilateral contexts in the region. This issue has been formulated in an experimental way in the Junker Enlargement Strategy published in February of this year. Such an approach comes in part from the evolution of EU policies through enlargement experiences. For example, importing the open issue of borders between Croatia and Slovenia over Piran has manifested itself into a more rigorous EU approach concerning the necessity of determining the specific border lines and closing bilateral disputes in general. This political climate has then provided its effects on the name change issue for Macedonia, the process of determining the maritime border between Greece and Albania, territorial demarcation between Kosovo and Montenegro, and, finally, the final agreement for normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. Determining the border line between Kosovo and Serbia will, therefore, be the inevitable part of the normalisation agreement. However, another issue remains, and still open, whether this implies setting the border as Kosovo's Presevo incorporation. While setting the border line is essential in this process, the scale of changes on the ground is still a controversial part among the actors involved in the talks. So, to give an answer to your question, while currently the Western Balkans are in a final process that will manifest itself as the etaliam of a new situation, the entire phase of this evolution and a wide range of issues that will open up and produce tensions in the meantime. This appears to produce the most intense effects on the final phase of Kosovo-Serbia talks.

Transatlantic relations, those Russia- The United States, with impacts on other regions of the world and so on, much is moving in Trump White House politics! Do you see that something new is being realized for the Balkans by the new American administration?

You've read the latest analysis, writers, politicians and journalists, are on the old map of the trial. They think more about the pandora box than about Kosovo. My colleagues have an old trial. The judgments are explained on an exercise of children who have just entered civil society in the 2006s, or as in the early years of Obama's presidency. Now Trump president. Everything's different. What is the basis for the opening of the pandoran “ ” when all countries are part of NATO, remove Bosnia. Therefore, sometimes listening to my colleagues, I think that Thaci is ready to determine the new world order and that Kosovo, not Montenegro, can start the Third World War, or at least establish the new Russian Empire. And, yes, Macedonia's future will be decided in Pristina, not Skopje. Bosnia too. Above all and against all disputes we will make Russia stronger within Serbia, enabling them to progress faster in the EU? Of what is it written until this day? Everything except Kosovo. Everything, but we need to face a unique opportunity to make agreements with Serbia, agreement on the functional state, the real deal for Kosovo's Western future. At this moment in Kosovo's citizenship, the benefits of action are very great. If we exceed the interest of great powers we can easily forget ourselves. And I'm sure that the US and Europe, with or without First America, with or without Brex, are strong enough to cope with Russia and stay for liberal democracy, stay for Macedonia in NATO and create a functioning Bosnia state. The real problem for all this anger show is because they don't like the player you play, so they want to ruin the game. Only this time at risk is much more than political order. This time it is about the historic opportunity for Kosovo, it is the opportunity to move forward out of fear and anger with Serbia, to go into relations that will enable more prosperity for both nations. Thaci and Vucic can do it now. And the agreement's agreement will help establish stability in the Western Balkans and harm chaos agents and Russia's influence in the region. So losers are all ruled by anger and fear.

American politics, along with the Chancellorship, also functions as lobeby, as personal contact. We've recently seen the movement in this direction: Trump's groom's meetings with Balkan politicians, we have seen Trump's strateg, Bannon across the Balkans and so on. News like that. Will these elements have impact on shaping a new US policy for the Balkans?

The current US presidency seems to be a show of two main political trends codified in the American institutional structure: on the one hand, the consolidation system of foreign policies operating in the stages of inherited policies and long-term strategic plans, despite changes of positions in state administration and, in turn, the wide scale of the president's competencies and considerable opportunity for independent political maneuvering. The U.S.- NATO, for example, is an illustrative example to support this statement: despite President Trump's NATO withdrawal stance along the election campaign proved impossible due to political forces in the US beyond the president, however, he has recently produced numerous complications with his demands for increased national budgets of member states for defence. So the president's individual role, however, carries a particular weight in producing US policies. The political approach of the current president of the United States, unlike Obama's, is not at all valid but completely transactional and pragmatic. In the case of Crime, for example, the US president made an unexpected withdrawal, saying this is a Obama failure he cannot fix. As a result, that issue was largely left on the agenda of the EU and Russia. More specifically, in the case of Kosovo, the Trump administration has inherited American commitment to Kosovo and its commitment to consolidating citizenship. However, for pragmatic reasons and with the demand for quick and effective solutions, it stands out for a highly flexible approach in relation to the Kosovo-Serbia negotiations process. For the first time, the US administration requires creative proposals from the parties to close open issues between them in rapid shape. Proposal of border changes between Kosovo and Serbia, acceptable to the parties, but for the US and Russia themselves, it is one of the most concrete products of this political approach.

Kosovo has been an international issue of the first plan, at least by 1974. A Constitutive Unit of the Yugoslav Federation, Kosovo, the red line for the Balkans, Security Council 1444, conditional independence, Kosovo dialogue Serbia, demarcation with Montenegro, membership in international organisations. But all seems not enough without a Kosovo-Serbia finalisation. In this context, Thaci's new and unexpected proposal represents what do you think?

Thaci's proposal for border correction is neither new nor unexpected. Every person partially familiar with developments in Kosovo- Serbia is informed that such an issue is at the negotiating table in Brussels for a long time. However, various factors within the EU have had their reserves in relation to this alternative due to possible destabilizing effects on the ground, and especially its implications in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Despite EU reserves it is now quite clear that the process of completing Kosovo's citizenship and advancing it into international relations is directly conditioned by membership in international mechanisms in general and by UN membership in particular. Kosovo's membership in the UN with state capacities also requires Russia's compliance with the Kosovo-Serbia eventual solution. While the solutions offered by the EU so far have not provided the desired effect on the ground, nor have they provided wider international support in this (even within the EU itself as a whole: remember Spain's attitudes), opening new options is increasingly becoming more realistic. Correcting the borders, therefore, is a formula that offers the reconciliation of the parties in negotiation due to the acquisition of Presevo and the granting of a minority part of the North Kosovo north as a whole, but also the approval of cruise political forces such as the US and Russia. In that sense, such a process has been conceived as closing Kosovo-Serbia bilateral disputes that ensure Kosovo's eventual accession to the international arena and involving in key international mechanisms. However, such a process is still under discussion, and its epilogue cannot be predicted by this position.

What are the guarantees that any agreement on border corrections Serbia- Kosovo will not set precedents for all other Balkan countries and restart... as always the endless Balkan wars?

Such a process cannot be conceived simply in terms of objective guarantees that territorial correction Kosovo- Serbia will not produce effects anywhere else in the region. However, if such a process is based on the principle of consensus between parties for territorial change, it all turns out not only in line with Helsinki parameters but also an affirmation that this practice is valid only in the event of a preliminary interstate agreement. So, from a principled point of view, it can apply only to Kosovo and Serbia. In any case, consider the political climate that will come under the effect of this process and Republika Srpska's rising sensitivistic trends in Bosnia and Herzegovina, such a process can exert reactions even in the already paralyzed sphere from within Bosnian politics. It is on this very consideration that the EU's huge reserve stands in terms of the territorial correction process. Its potential effect in other spheres in the Balkans depends on the attitude of other influential political actors there, including the US, Turkey, Russia and the EU.