Former British ambassador to Belgrade defends idea of exchange of territories

Former British Ambassador to the former Yugoslavia Ivor Roberts advocates the idea of exchanging territories between Serbia and Kosovo. He says this would be the right solution compared to the risk that disputes between the two countries remain unresolved.

Roberts has served as the ambassador of Great Britain to Belgrade in the years of BAR90, while later representing his country's interests in Ireland and Italy. <

In a writing on this week's issue of “Tablet”, Roberts says that what Thaci and Vucic have proposed would make a historic peace agreement reality.

Roberts says it is wrong to reject the idea of changing borders by taking the 1975 Helsinki Final Act for border failure as reference, since what this agreement envisioned was the invisibility of borders without mutual consent for change.

The former ambassador says the alternative to an agreement between Serbia and Kosovo remains pending and keeps a conflict freezing that leaves Kosovo out of the UN and Serbia out of the EU for a long time.

The truth is, there is no road without danger, and the actual impasse is not safe. I do not see it wrong to allow both countries to resolve their differences under mutually agreed terms”, he writes.

Roberts is known for his direct attitudes, despite his years of career diplomas. He obtained Irish citizenship in protest of Britain's decision to leave the EU.

In a writing to the “The Guardian” in April of this year, Roberts criticised the West, the US and the EU, which, according to him, have been little present in the former Yugoslavia and have enabled Russia to infiltrate the region. / BalkanInsight-TemA TV