The integrity of Kosovo at risk, is partitioning war?

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has stressed that restructuring the border with Serbia will have international support if this issue is reached to be included in the agreement on normalising reports between the two countries, within Brussels' dialogue.

The editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Koha Ditore”, Agron Bajrami, told Radio Free Europe that it is very strange that the country has suddenly entered a cycle of controversy over Kosovo's borders. According to him, something like that can be very dangerous.

These dilemmas that are being dropped especially when coming from the Kosovo institutions and politicians reopen the status issue, and this is a very dangerous way for our country, especially since it's all being done in the conflict of dialogue with Serbia. Therefore, there is also a huge fear of a major opposition from a part of Kosovo policy, as well as the international community, because such a path can only drag the issue forward to say, in order to complete the construction of Kosovo's citizenship”, Bajrami said.

Thaci, has declared that Kosovo and Serbia can peacefully do the correction of the border, citing with this case the involvement of the southern municipalities of Serbia, Presevo, Bujanoc and Medvedja, within the territory of Kosovo.

Meanwhile, Kosovo, according to him, does not have as an option the separation of any part of it to join Serbia.

Thaci has not given details about how this might happen.

“It is the moment for official Pristina to support the application of Albanians of municipalities, Presevo, Bujanoc and Medvedja to join Kosovo”, Thaci has declared a few days earlier at a media conference in Pristina.

Opposition parties in Pristina have accused Thaci of setting Kosovo's borders on the market. The opposition, which remains divided among itself, says it will take measures in the Parliament and abroad to prevent Thaci.

Is War Breakup?

Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj ruled out the possibility of discussions and negotiations on partitioning Kosovo or exchanging territories with neighbouring countries. According to Haradinaj, touching borders would mean war.

The borders are set to war, but war plays. Who thinks borders are played otherwise is wrong”, Haradinaj said today during a press conference after the government meeting.

“These borders are set by the Kosovo Liberation Army and NATO intervention, these are war limits”, Prime Minister Haradinaj said further.

Officials from the Kosovo government have said that partitioning Kosovo territory, exchanging territory or any option aimed at changing borders is not an option at all for the Government of Kosovo, and it is a thick red and impassable line.

Serbia's President Aleksandar Vuciq said that now is the best time to find a solution with Kosovo, and that his country is interested in peace and not in killing territory.

“Solving Kosovo's problem should be done as soon as possible, as well as Serbs and Albanians should declare whether we need peace or continue to be killed for territory?”, Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq said at a news conference in Belgrade.

Vuciq said the agreement, which he has doubts that it will be reached, will not make Serbs celebrate, but Albanians will not celebrate either.

EU and US Role

The European Union has asked Pristina and Belgrade not to have tensions in Kosovo, which could undermine joint efforts to reach a final agreement between Kosovo and Serbia.

Such a call has come after the media in Kosovo and Serbia reported potential tensions on August 4th, when the management team had to present the draft statute for the establishment of the Serb majority municipalities' association.

In contrast, the United States says that resolving disputes between Kosovo and Serbia should come from its own sides and be in their hands.

In a statement to Radio Free Europe, the US State Department said “The US is willing to listen and help the parties find a mutual solution”.

“Now is the time for the parties to be creative and flexible”, says the US State Department statement.

Response The UN came after suggestions that the possible solution to Kosovo-Serbia disputes could be achieved in exchange of territories on ethnic lines.

Thaci and Vuciq are expected to meet in September, where they will talk about their ideas about what the Kosovo-Serbia final agreement might look like.

Macedonia, Bosnia divisions

Daniel Cerwer, professor at John Hopkins University in Washington, estimates that border correction is a bad idea. In his analysis, Serwer says most Serbs in Kosovo, as well as the most important monasteries of Serbs and other religious sites, are not in the north.

The “those south of the Iber River will be in short and long-term danger if the territory is exchanged”.

According to Cerwer, such an exchange would destabilise Macedonia and Bosnia.

“The damage to the territory would increase support for those Albanians in Kosovo who favour joining the Albanians and those of Macedonia who want to join a Greater Albania, potentially destabilising Macedonia as well. ”

The Serbian Republic, 49 per cent controlled by the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, would want to follow suit by declaring independence and seeking to join Serbia”, Serwer wrote. /rel