After partition of Kosovo, Bosnia will be divided

Aleksandar Vucic's government in Serbia has repeatedly sabotaged negotiations with Kosovo over the international status of the latter. This is very evident to anyone who has been following the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue since its beginning in 2011. What has just become clear, although it has been openly discussed in diplomatic circles, is exactly the government's favourite choice to resolve disputes.

If Serbia is not prepared to eventually recognise Kosovo's independence within the context of its EU membership, how can the solution to the stalemate between the two states propose?

Diplomatic discussion now, has become the government's extenuation policy: it is partition. Civil society, academics and former government officials have made it clear that why these “border corrections” in the Balkans are a recipe set for chaos. If we've learned anything from the region's post-command history, it's that <x2nd> ethnic” means conflict. What is even more attractive is the degree by which the agreement proposed by Vucic and others about Kosovo has more to do with Bosnia and Herzegovina than with Serbia's former province.

Vucic's rhetoric, on the whole issue, makes it clear that, he and his government -- especially Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic -- are not interested in “reconciliation” with none of Serbia's neighbours. Their aim is to counter post-Yugoslav settlements in the region, which followed Slobodan Milosevic's attempt to create a “Greater Serbia”, from the old possible federation to four successive wars. This is not ancient history, it is the present context.

Neither Vucic nor Dacic have ever expressed any remorse for these wars, for their direct role in them as members of the Milosevic government, or for nearly 150,000 deaths that caused throughout the region. They continue to insist that Kosovo's independence is <x0 illegal>” and a violation of international law, but also that Republika Srpska, RS, the entity carved by Bosnia through campaigns of ethnic cleansing, deportations and genocide by Milosevic's militants Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, is only a part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In fact, according to Milorad Dodik, Vucic's close associate and RS president, the entity is destined to become part of a single Serbian state in the 21st century, whose formation should be the only task of the Serbian political elite in the years to come.

Dodik has voicedly asked Vucic to “determine” to resolve the Kosovo dispute with the reopening of the RS status issue within Bosnia, as the first step towards this future union. He has made this request repeatedly, often in Vucic's office, taking only the narrowest promises. Even these “corrections” are followed by even clearer comments from Dacic: Serbia will continue to intervene directly and routinely in Bosnian internal affairs.

As well as Vucic: dreary Bosniaks must take into account their behaviour when protesting Serbian politics against their country. Later, you think that in recent months the most absurd pro-regime media in Serbia have re-formed claims on the alleged persecution of Serbs in Montenegro, while Vucic himself has actively worked to undermine the reformist government in Macedonia in co-operation with his partners in the Kremlin. All this is part of a story: the proposed agreement on partitioning Kosovo is the opening of a precedent by the Vucic government, supported by the Dodik regime and supported by Russia, to uncover post-Yugoslav rule.

If Kosovo can be divided, then the 1995 Dayton Accords, which ended the war in Bosnia, could also be reviewed. In fact, this has been happening since the 19th century it is the western <x0-breast of the Drino” River, where Serbia's reactions imagine their true obvious fate. For the nationalist elite in Belgrade and Banja Luka, RS's status remains the unresolved “”, despite Serbia's still party to the Dayton Accords. In other words, it remains a territory to be acquired. And their ambitions in this direction, of importance, are not just rhetorical issues. Serbia's growing military co-operation with Russia, on both officially and not accepted levels, is documented.

Also documented is Dodik's rapid militarism with RS police, his association with the paramilitaries trained by Russia and criminal militia, as well as the presence of Russian-Serbian installations with suspicious targets in Banja Luka, Bosnia, Nis, and Serbia.

Therefore it would be naive for everyone in Europe, the US, or the wider international community to believe that there is a good purpose for these commitments, or that Belgrade or Banja Luka will be satisfied with partitioning Kosovo. Mitrovica Bridge in northern Kosovo cannot be transformed into a new state border, despite current de facto realities.

If that is done, Vucic, Dacic and Dodik will not relax, but will be encouraged. Their courage means that Bosnia and Herzegovina, the region's most unstable policy, filled with weapons and with continued discontent from the 1990s, will be their next goal. To be open, the modest “proposal that Belgrade and Banja Luka have made over Kosovo will have its real possibility at stake. As it was, Bosnia will be the main victim of their violent dreams, even though the violence that will occur will almost certainly cover the entire region. This cannot be allowed to happen.

/Dr. Jasmin Mujanovic is a politicalologist and researcher of International Relations. Currently, he lives and works in London for the Balkan Studies Institute. His first book, <x0Uria and Tourism: Balkan Democracy crisis”