How Serbia's stance on Kosovo changed over the years

Following the former Yugoslavia's famous strong man's statement, Slobodan Milosevic towards Serbs in Kosovo that “no one has the right to beat you” to the current Serbian president, Aleksandar Vuciq, saying: “if we cannot resolve it, [the Kosovo issue], who will do it” while sitting next to Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, the tone of Serbia on Kosovo has changed over time.

Now we are trying to do something that is of great importance to our future, which is very important for Albanians as well. We must live together, we are the biggest people in the Balkans. If we cannot resolve it, who will?”, Vuciq said on 26 August, standing next to President Thaci at a political forum in Austria.

While Kosovo declared its independence in 2008, and has since been recognised by the United States and most EU countries, Serbia still insists that its previous province remains part of its territory.

Three decades ago, Serbs heard a different rhetoric from that of Vuciqi for Kosovo, which resulted in the election of a frozen “conflict on a diplomatic solution, and support of Serbia's military action in the event Kosovo sends its forces to Kosovo's predominantly Serb north, referring to the June survey by APUFactor plus '%.

Kosovo has long been used to boost Serbia's nationalism and experience popular patriotism.

“Kosovo is the heart of Serbia” is a sentence still used on the right-wing and pro-Russian side of Serbian society.

Kosovo Albanians “are living in this country. They cannot take part in its territory and turn it into an independent state”, Milosevic said in an interview for HINA KHOU-TV Houston in 1999.

Milosevic rose in 1987 on the Kosovo issue. Almost overnight, he became the spokesman known for Serbian nationalist interests in the then Yugoslav Federation, after claiming Serbs in Kosovo were oppressed and even beaten by most Kosovo Albanians.

“From now on no one has the right to beat you, he said in a famous speech in Kosovo, after hearing complaints of the Serb minority living there in April 1987.

Milosevic's opponents accused him of inciting Serbian nationalism in a bid to create a “Greater Serbia” from the ruins of Yugoslavia, while his group of supporters insisted that he only wanted to keep Yugoslavia from separatists.

Another wave of nationalism struck in 1998, when the conflict in Kosovo intensified and reports of atrocities committed by Serb paramilitary forces against independence fighters and Kosovo civilians.

After NATO bombed Serbian positions for several weeks, Milosevic was forced to stop his military operations, withdraw from Kosovo and allow NATO forces to take over, as NATO aircraft had bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days in 1999.

Therefore, he was defeated in Kosovo, the same issue that had brought him to power.

His successor, Serbia's new pro-Western prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, had a different opinion and insisted that the Kosovo issue should be resolved as soon as possible.

“Kosovo is a danger to Serbia's citizenship, through which the last drop of blood can be lost. We have to close it somehow. Maximumly favourable for us, but compromised with the other side, with Albanians living in Kosovo”, Djindjic said in 2003, in which a bullet left him dead.

Djindjic was shot dead in front of the government office building in Belgrade on 12 March that year by Zvezdan Jovanovic, a member of the Zemun criminal clan. Jovanovic was imprisoned for the 40-year murder in May 2007.

Djindjic believed that without resolving the Kosovo issue, Serbia had no European prospects or opportunities to solve its serious economic problems.

My first <x0Ide is federalisation in which Serbs are a constitutional people who will have their institutions within joint institutions. We, like Serbia, will give time for Kosovo to become capable if it can. If he can't, let's move forward”, he said in his last interview.

Djindjic added that while Kosovo was a controversial topic and a hot “ ” theme, the “liders should open such topics and not leave the public but face problems. Kosovo is a problem and we cannot close our eyes to reality”, he warned.

However, the future Serbian prime minister had very different views.

“Kosovo belongs to Serbia and the Serbian people ... there is no threat or condemnation that is strong enough for Serbia to give up Kosovo”, conservative nationalist Vojislav Kostunica said at a mass protest in Belgrade against Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence.

Serbia's “Kombi will never forget the principled support of the president of Russia ... and of all countries opposed to taking Kosovo”, he added, while the crowd of supporters shouting, “We will not give up on Kosovo”.

Referring to independent Kosovo as a false “ ” country, the prime minister added that “flamm is false, laws are false, borders, geography, all must be false”.

Kostunica was caught up in this difficult stance until his political retirement, with his nationalist Democratic Party of Serbia, DSS, still rejecting that Serbia was part of “dialog” with the EU and Pristina.

A year after the event “Kosovo is Serbia”, on February 17th 2009, Serbian President Boris Tadic, meanwhile, declared that Kosovo was not “an independent state” in an interview with AFP.

For Serbia, February 17th [2008] was a day when authorities in Pristina declared Kosovo independence illegally, based on international law”, Tadic said.

“A year later, it is clear to all who want to see the real situation in Kosovo that it is not a state”, he added, insisting that its status as a failed state was obvious, especially on the human rights issue.

In November 2011, Tadic refused to sign a declaration calling for changes in Serbia's policy towards Kosovo.

The opposition Liberal Democratic Party, The LDP and the Serbian Renewal Movement, SPO, with the support of NGOs and prominent public persons, had drafted a document saying Serbia should return to the negotiating table with Kosovo if it wants to join the EU. It highlighted that Europe was the only acceptable “lighthouse for Serbia's troubled society.

But Tadic said he could not sign it, since it meant giving up key national interests.

A country that gives up its legitimate interests is easily recognised by major powers as a country that can easily set new conditions and loses credibility”, Tadic said.

The descendants of Tadic in power, the Serbian Progressive Party, however, have changed their opinion ever since.

The policy of the new government [progressive] will not recognise Kosovo”, Aleksandar Vuciq said in July 2012, after his party won the general elections in Serbia in May of that year.

A year after the party took power, Serbia and Kosovo signed the Brussels Agreement, however, adopting a 15-point draft agreement on normalising relations on April 17th 2013.

The text of the agreement was signed by both prime ministers.

In the latest development, President Vuciq has announced he will visit Kosovo on September 9th to submit the “travel and newer state policy directions to Kosovo”.

Without saying more, he asked his Serbian followers to show “much more tolerance” to a possible agreement, which some believe may include territorial exchanges, as well as recognition.