Division of Kosovo as Precedent for the Transdniestrian Settlement

Andrei Voznesensky The processes connected with the Kosovo settlement have intensified in the Balkans. The Brussels round of talks between Belgrade and Pristina scheduled for September has every reason to become a landmark and give a political impetus towards the final settlement of this long-standing ethno-religious conflict that took hundreds of lives and entailed the redrawing of borders in the Balkans. Perhaps, the mechanism for the exchange of territories will create an additional precedent and will become an actual model for resolving a number of other similar conflicts on the European continent, including prospects for the settlement of relations between Moldova and Transdniestria. According to information from diplomatic sources, the focus in the talks between Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo’s head Hashim Thaci is likely to be a discussion of the possibility of exchanging territories: the Serb-inhabited north of Kosovo in exchange for the south of Serbia, where Albanians live. It is noteworthy that both sides conduct quite intensive information preparation for the upcoming talks, which allows us to talk about mutual interest in this approach to the conflict settlement. It is clear that both Belgrade and Pristina make their own understanding of its content and broadcast their a priori overvalued positions, but the readiness to approach the issue through the prism of pragmatic bargaining can be easily defined. In particular, on August 9, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that he supports the delimitation with Albanians on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija to avoid conflicts in the future, the national RTS TV reports. Vucic stressed that he openly supports the delimitation with Albanians and considers this as part of his policy. According to him, to have a territory which it is not known who is treating it in what way, and what belongs to whom – that it is always a source of potential conflict. At the current stage, the Serbian leadership seeks to take a proactive stance in addressing the Kosovo conflict, since the territorial dispute with Pristina is the main Belgrade’s ‘anchor’ on the way to the European Union. Brussels made it clear that Serbia and Montenegro can join the EU by 2025. However, until this they need to reach a sustainable settlement by concluding a “legally binding agreement” on the normalization of relations between Serbia and the partially recognized Republic of Kosovo. According to available information, Brussels is using the pro-European course of the current Serbia’s leadership, increasing pressure on it and demanding an agreement with Pristina during this year, threatening otherwise to block Serbia’s integration into the EU. According to some experts, an early resolution of the dispute with Kosovo with the consolidated support of leading international players gives Serbia grounds to expect preferences from Brussels in the form of early accession to the EU, without waiting for 2025. Now, the United States, the European Union and Russia are closely following the situation in the Balkans. The international actors have stepped up their efforts in this area, clearly realizing that at the political leadership of Belgrade and Pristina have in fact many motives and conditions favorable for the transition to an active phase of the settlement. According to expert estimates, there are sufficient grounds for a win-win settlement with bonuses for each side that will make the solution stable, long-term and relatively painless from the perspective of domestic political costs for the ruling elites. Most analysts believe that society of both parties to the conflict feel irritation and frustrations mounting from years of deprivation, unsettledness, constant tension, frequent clashes and incidents, and from the lack of a clear future perspective. Perhaps the transfer of the negotiators to such concrete aspects as a distinct division of the borders and areas of responsibility between Belgrade and Pristina will bring the long-awaited ‘relaxation’ in the regional situation and will offer the population a clearer and, above all, a realistic vision of the future. In this situation, external players are actively using the unique opportunity to become co-authors of the Balkan ‘success’ and to strengthen their own positions, as we see by the activity of political and diplomatic contacts in all directions. The official reaction of the Kosovo’s President, Hashim Thaci, can be considered as a whole complementary to the idea of territories division, although the voiced thoughts are watered down and contain a necessary political component. In particular, he assumed that if the agreement on the final normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina is signed, adjustment of the existing borders and the administrative line is possible by joining the Serbian Presevo Valley, which is home to Albanians predominately, to Kosovo. The Kosovo leader said that he intends to raise the delimitation issue at the next round of negotiations with the Serbian leadership with the mediation of the EU in Brussels. “We will talk about demarcation, about adjusting the border, but I remind you that under no conditions any side can impose accepting of Serbian claims on the partition of Kosovo. At the same time, as part of the adjustment, I am confident that we will implement and accept an official request of the leaders of the Presevo Valley to join Kosovo if an agreement is reached,” Hashim Thaci quoted by Radio and Television of Kosovo. The only acceptable form of final settlement of the conflict between Belgrade and Pristina, according to the President of Kosovo, should be “mutual recognition”. The situation is unique since the verbal ‘political wrapper’ hides the fact that both leaders, both Alexandar Vucic and Hashim Thaci, are actually talking about the same process of territorial adjustments or exchanges (roughly speaking, north of Kosovo for the south of Serbia), adding own preconditions. Thus, in the ‘internal’ dimension – in the relations between the leadership of the parties to the conflict – there is a clear coincidence of views on the settlement mechanism through the mutually acceptable division of territories and the official political grounding of this adjustment at the bilateral and international levels. At the same time, it is important that this idea is basically impracticable without the support by key world players, and a certain change in the rhetoric of the leading actors has occurred in the ‘external’ dimension of the Kosovo conflict. As part of the notorious policy of double standards, the US and the EU have always opposed the redrawing of borders in the Balkans, which at the same time did not prevent them from supporting secession of the region from Serbia and increase in number of states that recognized the independence of the Republic of Kosovo (115 today). An indicative marker of the flexible stance in this sense is the position recently voiced by Washington, according to which Serbia and Kosovo themselves should offer the solution “showing flexibility and creativity”. Russia takes up a similar position on this issue, which at an informal level signals that it will agree with a solution that will suit Belgrade and allow a long-term and sustainable settlement. Recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia by the Russian Federation in 2008, as well as the annexation of the Crimea in 2014 are the most important factors of the foreign policy order that neutralize any arguments of Moscow about adherence to the ‘inviolability’ of borders. Officials in the European Commission speak more cautiously and vaguely, declaring their agreement with a solution that will have the support of both sides and comply with international laws. However, a number of leading EU countries, in particular Germany, are absolutely opposed to redrawing of borders in Europe. In fact, the pace of developments in the region is surely high, so new proposals and ideas will evidently appear, and the final clarity in the positions of specific world players in relation to the Kosovo settlement model will appear simultaneously with the outline of the contours and details of the exchange itself. Nevertheless, potential political benefits of conflict settlement through territorial division already make this option of a pragmatic exchange with international guarantees more attractive to most stakeholders than the preservation of the status quo in this matter with a continuous layering of complex problems and negative costs. It seems that the exchange model can be the first fundamentally important stage on the road to a final settlement that will extinguish the conflict, create optimal conditions for protecting the rights and interests of ethnic groups of Serbs and Albanians, and will serve as a catalyst for stabilizing and building the atmosphere of trust. Perhaps a comprehensive agreement on a final settlement will be reached and signed much later, even by other political leaders of the parties. However, successful implementation of the first stage has all the objective prerequisites to create conditions to finalize the process at the international level. In this context, it can be assumed that the settlement of this high-profile conflict in the Balkans in the presence of an international ‘concert’ of interests (there is a real background for this) will create a fully workable model for settling other similar conflicts in Europe. According to some experts, one of the first candidates for an early settlement is the long-standing frozen conflict between Moldova and breakaway Transdniestria. This idea is explained by the fact that, starting from the end of 2017, there have been significant positive changes in the relations between Chisinau and Tiraspol, expressed in signing of a whole package of bilateral agreements on important social and humanitarian issues. Besides, at the end of last year, there was a very symbolic opening of the bridge between the two banks of the Dniester River, which was blown up during the 1992 war and did not function for 25 years. Today, influential external players who participate in its settlement in the international 5+2 format (including Russia, Ukraine, the OSCE, the EU and the US) share a common interest in the early resolution of this conflict. Objective improvement of relations between Chisinau and Tiraspol creates favorable conditions for the settlement. It is logical to assume that successful implementation of the Kosovo model makes it much more likely to be applied to the region adjacent to the Balkans. It should be noted that a trilateral international peacekeeping operation is still active on the Dniester, along the combat line, which is today called the Security Zone. The Moldovan and Transdniestrian authorities since that time cannot exercise their control over a number of settlements. In past years these territories were places of various incidents, including clashes between law enforcement agencies, which led to a sharp aggravation of the conflict. In this sense, a balanced and rational exchange of disputed territories, based on opinion of the population living there, could be an important step towards reducing conflict and moving to a practical transformation of the peacekeeping mission from military to civilian. As experience shows, it is better to solve such complicated complex issues step-by-step. If a possible adjustment of the borders between Belgrade and Pristina will lead to elimination of conditions for escalating tensions in the long term, then there are hardly convincing arguments against the application of a similar approach in the neighboring region. It is noteworthy that Serbia and Kosovo actually agreed on the demarcation of the border, but still call it in various ways. International partners have every reason to promote similar processes in relations between Moldova and Transdniestria. An analysis of the prospects for possible application of the Balkan model for the Transdniestrian settlement reveals a whole range of interesting parallels. Experts of RTA will continue to monitor trends and analyze the ongoing processes.