Tag: Balkans
Religious radicalism threatens Kosovo
The Pristina daily Zëri has kindly given permission for republication in English of this interview with Petrit Selimi, Deputy Foreign Minister of Kosovo:
With 2013 behind us, can you make a list of accomplishments and commitments that have not been completed and that are to be fulfilled this year?
I am happy with the work done during 2013. We started some interesting processes within my work portfolio in public diplomacy and these results were also recognized by the international community and partners of Kosovo diplomacy. Even in the field of interfaith dialogue as an element of public diplomacy as well as in the digital diplomacy we had a year with measurable results, receiving high praise from around the world. Kosovo’s membership in the Council of Europe development bank is also very important to the penetration of Kosovo’s multilateral diplomacy and its strategic objectives, although few commented on it. Recognitions of Kosovo’s statehood during 2013 are also important.
As regards the overall aspect of Kosovo, I believe that the dialogue and the agreement on normalization of relations and the local elections that were held successfully and also for the first time throughout the territory of the Republic of Kosovo, are among the most important results of the decade and the positive effects will be seen in the years to come. On the negative side, the failure of privatization of the PTK is regrettable and will have serious consequences on the image of Kosovo which aims to be a suitable territory for foreign investors.
How is the process of lobbying for recognition of the Republic of Kosovo proceeding and who could be the next state to recognize Kosovo, or, at least, which continent recognition could come next?
Minister Hoxhaj often says that “the geography of recognitions is global” and I believe that this will also be confirmed in future recognitions that are expected to come from three different continents. Next year, we expect to enter the territory of the comfortable majority of UN members that have recognized Kosovo.
A few days ago, the Foreign Minister has spoken out about the “Islam imported from the East” as a problem for Kosovo. During visits and conversations you have had in recent months with your counterparts around the world, journalists and various personalities, did you stress the radicalization of Islam as a problem for Kosovo?
Religious radicalism is problem number one and the greatest risk to the national interests in the long run. Corruption and organized crime present also great problems to all Balkan countries, but we have the additional element that is used as hostile propaganda against Kosovo – that supposedly we are a fertile territory for terrorism and religious radicalism.
I believe that those who speak today in absolutist terms about religion and who do not focus on diversity and tolerance – all of them add water to the mill of Serbian propaganda. Serbia, since the end of 1980s frightened Europe by claiming that Kosovo is part of the “green triangle” which also includes Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and part of Serbia. It is ironic that some Albanians become the biggest supporters of these theories.
Are these developments damaging the image of Kosovo as a secular state and which aspired to the West, not to the East?
They are not still very exposed, but if the actions of verbal hatred that are heard by some imams and so-called intellectuals escalate and turn into physical violence, then many European countries that have in their political landscape parties with rightist views, and antagonistic to political Islam, will simply refuse to approve further steps towards Kosovo’s European integration. Kosovans should never forget that EU membership necessitates the votes of MPs of the entire 28 EU states. We must be patient and tolerant and we must become masters of promoting peaceful agenda, dialogue and progress. There are some among us who ignore these risks, but it can turn into a boomerang.
Visa liberalization. It is already proved that the lack of free movement of citizens of Kosovo is emerging as a source of negative actions of our society, such as illegal border crossings, which has often lead to people losing their lives. How is this fact undermining Kosovo’s integration process?
Lack of free movement is one of the greatest sources of frustration for Kosovans. We have a disproportionally large diaspora which means that free movement is vital for us to keep in touch with family and friends. Inability to travel creates a gap between us and others in the Balkans and helps deepen the radical discourse, nationalist or religious-fascist. The Government of Kosovo has worked more than anything else in fulfilling the criteria and we hope that the political and technical evaluation will be fast enough as for the willingness of Kosovans to move freely.
In the rotating EU Council Summit, in March, do you think that Kosovo has any likelihood of getting any positive response regarding the visa liberalization process given the multiple criteria that are to be met?
We are approaching the months of March and I doubt that the final decision could come as soon. Minister Çitaku is working with her team, assisted by the competent ministries, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to document the fulfilled criteria. For example, we have installed the visa system for citizens of third countries, with the assistance of Norway, three times faster than some neighboring states. Kosova was the last to receive the Roadmap list, which has been the longest, while Kosovo has worked hard to carry out its obligations successfully.
If in 2013 the desire was to reach 100 recognitions, which will be the greatest success of your ministry this year?
I believe that the application for membership in the Council of Europe and some UN agencies may present positive development. Recognition by any EU country from the famous Quint is also crucial. We have been very focused in these areas in the last two years, especially with the public diplomacy tools.
Kosovan artists and sportsmen are excelling increasingly in Europe. What is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs doing to use their names to influence the various lobbying circles? Do you communicate with these artists and athletes and can we expect organization of a special event with them?
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with the British Embassy, the Norwegian Embassy and the British Council has paid more than 500 plane tickets for artists, athletes and various activists who excelled during the past two years. From the Venice Biennale to various concerts, exhibitions, presentation, etc, have been in the focus of our assistance, in coordination with the Ministry of Culture.
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History is irreversible
Yesterday’s New York Times suggests “Power Vacuum in Middle East Lifts Militants.” US withdrawal is of course the cause of the power vacuum. For years however we’ve been hearing that US presence in the Middle East is what generates militant reactions. American bases in Saudi Arabia and the American occupation of Iraq are often cited as prime movers of Islamic militancy.
Similar contradictory statements appear often about Bashar al Asad. The Western press is now full of claims that getting rid of him will leave Syria open to the possibility of a Sunni extremist takeover. But his continued hold on power all too obviously also encourages radicalization of the opposition to his rule.
The simple fact is that we don’t know much about what feeds violent militancy. While William Pape and James Feldman claim that suicide terrorism–certainly a salient characteristic of some contemporary Islamic extremists–is rooted in foreign occupation, there are ample reasons to believe that it doesn’t stop with American withdrawal. It certainly did not in Iraq and likely won’t in Afghanistan either.
With respect to Asad’s impact on militancy, we know even less. He has benefitted from, and even encouraged, violent resistance to his regime, which empowers him to respond violently. But would violent resistance end if Bashar stepped aside in favor of a transitional government with full executive powers (as foreseen in the June 2012 UN communique)? I doubt it.
The world does not run backwards. Removing a cause, post facto, does not get you back to where you started. Washington pulled the rug out from under Hosni Mubarak in February 2011 and helped to force his resignation, but that did not reverse the effect in Egyptian minds of decades of US support for military rule in Egypt. An Israel/Palestine agreement now may be highly desirable, but it is unlikely to have the same impact it might have had in the 1990s. There is just too much that has happened since and won’t be forgotten, on both sides.
Violence is particularly important in preventing history from running in reverse. People won’t forget Bashar’s use of mass violence to compensate for his lack of legitimacy, protect Alawites and bolster territorial control. Syria when I studied Arabic there in 2008 was peaceful and tolerant, even though repressed and authoritarian. Ending Bashar’s rule will not take us back there. Any future dictatorship in Syria will have to be much more brutal than Bashar’s was. Any future democracy will face problems that a democracy emerging from a less violent transition would not have to face.
Where does this leave us with respect to US behavior? We are clearly going to need to find indirect and less expensive ways to influence world events than the military interventions we used so boldly from 1995 to 2003. Bosnia and Kosovo were relatively cheap and killed no Americans. The legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan is a gigantic tab–on the order of $6 trillion I read somewhere this morning–plus thousands of dead, military and civilian. I don’t agree with Mearsheimer’s notion that America is unhinged (and responsible for militancy in Syria) but clearly we are not going back to large-scale military interventions, even if economic and financial conditions improve.
What we need is to be much more proactive, preventing unhappy events before they happen. We clearly failed at that in the Arab world, where we were caught unawares despite a large and well-established diplomatic presence. But American diplomacy has a pretty good record in recent decades of nurturing, or at least permitting, nonviolent change in Latin America and Asia. Let’s remember how to do it, because history is irreversible.
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The 2013 vintage in the peace vineyard
2013 has been a so-so vintage in the peace vineyard.
The Balkans saw improved relations between Serbia and Kosovo, progress by both towards the European Union and Croatian membership. Albania managed a peaceful alternation in power. But Bosnia and Macedonia remain enmired in long-running constitutional and nominal difficulties, respectively. Slovenia, already a NATO and EU member, ran into financial problems, as did Cyprus. Turkey‘s long-serving and still politically dominant prime minister managed to get himself into trouble over a shopping center and corruption.
The former Soviet space has likewise seen contradictory developments: Moldova‘s courageous push towards the EU, Ukraine‘s ongoing, nonviolent rebellion against tighter ties to Russia, and terrorist challenges to the Sochi Winter Olympics. Read more
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A good year for Kosovo, big challenges ahead
I did this piece for the New Year’s edition of Kosova Sot, which was scheduled to publish it today:
2013 was a good year for Kosovo. It reached an important agreement with Serbia, got a green light from the EU for stabilization and association talks with Brussels, and conducted good elections on its whole territory for the first time since independence in 2008. These are not spectacular achievements, but they point in the right direction: an increasingly normal state with a future in the European Union.
What stands in the way? Kosovo is still not sovereign in vital two dimensions. One is the military dimension: it lacks an army and other ways of defending itself. The other is the rule of law dimension: it lacks the capacity to enforce the law on the whole territory and with respect to everyone.
The army is not an immediate problem, as the NATO-led KFOR provides territorial security. But KFOR will only be around for a few more years. Pristina needs to devote some quality time to working out what the major challenges to its security will be over the next 5-10 years and how it can respond effectively. Read more
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The handwriting on the wall
The European Council at the level of heads of state and government decided Friday that accession negotiations with Serbia will open formally January 21. This marks an important advance in Serbia’s transition from a thuggish autocracy under Slobodan Milosevic to an increasingly open and democratic society 14 years later. The process of meeting European Union standards and gaining admission will likely take another decade, as Croatia’s accession did. It will be a hard slog. But many of the benefits and costs of EU membership occur even before formal accession. Serbia can expect ample funding to pay for the adjustment process.
This puts Serbia more or less in the middle of the pack in the Balkans “regatta” for EU membership. Slovenia and Croatia are already EU members, Montenegro is in the process of negotiating accession, Macedonia is already a candidate and awaits only resolution of its dispute with Greece over its name to start accession negotiations, Albania awaits candidate status, Bosnia and Herzegovina has concluded a Stabilization and Association Agreement (a prelude to candidacy) and Kosovo is still negotiating one. But Serbia has particular weight in the Balkans: it is geographically central, played an important role for the better part of a century in Yugoslavia and is still demographically and economically a relative heavyweight, despite a greying population and a stalled economy. Read more
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The end is nigh, once again
2013 is ending with a lot of doom and gloom:
- South Sudan, the world’s newest state, is suffering bloodletting between political rivals, who coincide with its two largest tribes (Dinka and Nuer).
- The Central African Republic is imploding in an orgy of Christian/Muslim violence.
- North Korea is risking internal strife as its latest Kim exerts his authority by purging and executing his formally powerful uncle.
- China is challenging Japan and South Korea in the the East China Sea.
- Syria is in chaos, spelling catastrophe for most of its population and serious strains for all its neighbors.
- Nuclear negotiations with Iran seem slow, if not stalled.
- Egypt‘s military is repressing not only the Muslim Brotherhood but also secular human rights advocates.
- Israel and Palestine still seem far from agreement on the two-state solution most agree is their best bet.
- Afghanistan‘s President Karzai is refusing to sign the long-sought security agreement with the United States, putting at risk continued presence of US troops even as the Taliban seem to be strengthening in the countryside, and capital and people are fleeing Kabul.
- Al Qaeda is recovering as a franchised operation (especially in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and North Africa), even as its headquarters in Pakistan has been devastated.
- Ukraine is turning eastward, despite the thousands of brave protesters in Kiev’s streets.
The Economist topped off the gloom this week by suggesting that the current international situation resembles the one that preceded World War I: a declining world power (then Great Britain, now the US) unable to ensure global security and a rising challenger (then Germany now China). Read more
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