Albanian UN Representative: Serbia recognition does not guarantee Kosovo automatically sitting

There are no automatic processes which would enable Kosovo membership in the United Nations Organisation, even if it would receive recognition from Serbia at the end of the dialogue process, says Lisen Bashkurti, former representative of Albania at the United Nations and currently president of the Albanian Diplomatic Academy. According to him, this recognition would only facilitate Kosovo's integration process. In a conversation for Radio Free Europe, Bashkurti has expressed itself against the idea of correction or changing the border as a solution to the Kosovo-Serbia conflict. He does not even believe in Serbia's policy stability even in the event of a final agreement with Kosovo.

Radio Free Europe: The latest phase of dialogue for normalising relations with Serbia awaits Kosovo. If this process ends eventually with recognition of the state of Kosovo, does that imply rounding up its international subjectivity, or will it face other challenges in this direction?

Lysen Bashkurti: I think that concluding the dialogue process for normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia could bring recognition of the state of Kosovo. But that does not mean that the same attitude will convey other states, especially the major powers that have blocked this process, but also the specific organisations in which Kosovo needs to integrate. This is about the fact, because the recognition of states and the establishment of diplomatic relations is the attribute of sovereign states, of their political decisions, and not conditioned by each other's positions.

Radio Free Europe: Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has stressed that a final agreement with Serbia and bilateral eventual recognition paves the way nearly automatism towards the United Nations Organisation. Could that be so?

Lysen Bashkurti: Based on the International Law, but also on the practice of recognising the new states and accepting them to the United Nations, this process cannot be automatically linked. That's why, as I said, the process of recognising states is due to the political decision of any sovereign state, including the simple members of the UN, as well as Security Council members. It is their political position, it is the decision of sovereign states, in line with their national interests, that defines the further destiny of recognising Kosovo and its integration into the United Nations. There are no automatic processes envisioned in International Law, either in the United Nations Charter or in the practices of this nature.

Radio Free Europe: We are always talking about whether, eventually, the recognition of the state of Kosovo by Serbia occurs at the end of the dialogue process. So when we mention the eventual challenges for UN membership and other international organisations, how serious will they be and will they depend on the shape and quality of the comprehensive agreement?

Lysen Bashkurti: What can be said unequivocally is that the recognition of Kosovo from Serbia will greatly facilitate the process, with the fact that a part of the countries which refuse recognition of Kosovo and establishing diplomatic relations with it have been very conditional on their bilateral or regional ties and interests in co-operation with Serbia. They are influenced and continue to be influenced by the politics and action of Serbian diplomatic action. So Serbia's recognition would facilitate Kosovo's integration process, as well as the United Nations.

Serbia's recognition would certainly be a positive step to speed up the process of recognition by five European Union member states and open the green light for continuing the negotiations process for Serbia's full membership, as well as facilitate Kosovo's further advancement process in Euro-Atlantic integration, respectively, to the EU and NATO.

Regarding the format of agreement or the quality of the agreement, as the question is also asked about correction or changing the border, this is a very controversial and very controversial issue. In general, the academic opinion -- scientific but political-diplomatic -- is that the Balkans will not enter the core of border correction or change for three main reasons.

The first one, because the Balkans have a very bloody historical experience regarding changing the border. Change of borders in the Balkans has been synonymous with confrontation, wars and bloody conflicts for more than 100 years.

Second, the Balkans have relatively weak states, newly created states or countries of difficult transition, which do not guarantee their internal stability, stability in relations with neighbours and stability in the region, in the event the 20-x0> Framework Framework Box of the Border opens.
Thirdly, the Balkans do not have a unified democratic system, co-ordination and co-operation within it, so that it can solve the problems of territorial debates based on the principles of International Law and the democratic principles of the European Union. These three reasons make it highly inappropriate, even dangerous, and unpredictable, to correct or change borders. In the case of the Kosovo-Serbia bilaterale, this issue becomes even more complicated because it is related to successive effects or dominoes, as stated in political sciences, including other political spaces, minorities, border areas, transitive areas, which introduce the region into a very unpredictable process.

Radio Free Europe: Is the possibility of resolving the border ruled out?

Lysen Bashkurti: However, everything is possible. You cannot rule out the possibility that you can go to correction. But this requires a great stability of two bilatera factors in the talks, very powerful support and enormous international guarantees that this process will not extend to the other cases and rough problems in the Balkans and that it will guarantee the terms of a guaranteed and internationally supported agreement.

Radio Free Europe: Consequently, such a evental agreement on these bases mentioned could cause chain reactions that could make Kosovo difficult to round up its international subjectivity, or can it facilitate this road?

Lysen Bashkurti: I don't think that an agreement with border correction can be realised if it is not considered the thought and attitude of neighbouring states, countries of the region, of the Western Balkans, of the main powers in the European Union, in NATO, but also of global powers. So it can't be, simply, a bilatheral decision of the Kosovo-Serbia double, border correction issue, because this is a phenomenon, a problem, that at world levels there are more than 140 such analog problems and efforts are being made to solve in a very peaceful, very self-containable and very principled way of International Law.

Particularly in the Balkans, such a process could not be opened, since most Western Balkan countries do not support border correction. Most European Union countries and the main powers of the EU are also against changing borders, as well as a large part of the influential countries in global politics, oppose the opening of the Pandora Box, in terms of border correction and change.

But, first of all, this is a very personal opinion, I have no faith in Serbia's policy stability. Serbia has proven to have played double, with many pro-European and pro-euroazitic standards. She's been trying to speed up the diplomacy for tattooing her interests, only to take advantage of her advanced positions and the difficulties facing Kosovo. It has witnessed since April 2013, because more than 14 or 15 agreements have been signed, which most of them, over 80 to 85 percent, have not been implemented.

So, I easily sign the agreements, but it's easier to break them. It is at all playful and reliable in its co-operation with Kosovo and I would not be willing to believe that such an agreement, even with the exchange of borders, would make Serbia obliged to recognise Kosovo's independence and facilitate its integration into the United Nations.