Emerging from the woods festival

Boris Kamchev of the Macedonian Information Agency asked me some questions last week about Kosovo. I responded:

Q: Could you please comment on the tensions this week between the Kosovo’s security forces and the Serb-dominated enclave in northern Kosovo. Is this a beginning of a well prepared conflict organized by the Russian factor, for breakaway of the Kosovo’s northern province and its annexation by Serbia?

A: As I understand the events this week, the Kosovo security forces made several arrests in the north of alleged criminals, as is their responsibility. There is no northern province of Kosovo. There are four majority-Serb municipalities that are not going to “breakaway,” not least because KFOR won’t permit it and Belgrade would want to accept them.

Q: What are the options for pacification of the situation and reaching an agreement between Pristina and Belgrade?

A: Arrests of criminals are very much part of maintaining law and order. Belgrade already agreed to the validity and applicability of Kosovo’s constitution and justice system in the north in the April 2013 Brussels agreement. There is no need for a new agreement on that subject.

Racist remarks about Albanians by Serbia’s Prime Minister have aggravated the situation, but the predominant reaction I’ve seen from Albanians is mockery. The situation could benefit from a sense of humor. Rather than banning the Prime Minister, I’d like to see Pristina invite her to an “emerging from the woods” festival.

Q: Are you proponent of a territorial exchange between Pristina and Belgrade for resolution of this question?

A: No. I am a notorious opponent of land and people swaps, which would lead to disaster for Serbs in Kosovo, Albanians in Serbia as well as everyone in Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The first rule of international behavior is to avoid harm. Only Vladimir Putin would gain from the chaos a land swap would precipitate. The United States and Europe would lose.