A KOSOVO "PRECEDENT" CAN CUT BOTH WAYS
by Vladimir Socor

Eurasia Daily Monitor — The Jamestown Foundation
January 22, 2007 — Volume 4, Issue 15

Just ahead of Serbia’s parliamentary elections, which were held
yesterday, January 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin weighed in to
encourage Serb nationalist forces on the pivotal issue of Kosovo.
Putin reassured Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica in a
telephone conversation that a status plan for Kosovo that is not
accepted by Belgrade would not pass through the United Nations Security
Council — an oblique way for Putin so say that Russia would use its
veto to block such a plan. Any solution must stem from the principle
of territorial integrity, Putin said with regard to Serbia and the
eventual Kosovo status. Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei
Lavrov similarly declared that any status regarding Kosovo must be
"mutually acceptable" to Belgrade as well as to Kosovo’s Albanian
population (Interfax, international news agencies, January 16, 17).

With that position, Putin challenged German Chancellor Angela Merkel
and the European Union as a whole during Merkel’s January 20 visit to
Sochi. Addressing Merkel in her capacity as German holder of the EU
presidency, Putin asserted during the concluding news conference that
Russia would only support a Kosovo status that suits both Belgrade
and Prishtina (Interfax, January 20, 21; Kommersant, January 22). The
clear implication — so interpreted also by German commentators —
is that Moscow is positioning itself to thwart the EU’s common policy,
which is shepherding Kosovo toward independence. By the same token the
Kremlin challenges U.S. policy, which would prefer a somewhat faster
decision on Kosovo’s independence, albeit with mechanisms in place to
ensure democratic institution building and Serbian minority rights,
as well as a U.S. and NATO military presence.

Moscow, however, seeks to confer de facto veto power to Belgrade in
the Kosovo status negotiations and, in effect, delegate Belgrade’s
veto to Moscow to exercise in the U.N. Security Council. In Sochi,
Merkel stopped short of taking issue with Putin openly over Kosovo.
Instead, she pointed to the successful stabilization of Bosnia under
Western supervision and the similar prospects for Kosovo under the
status plan, soon to be submitted by the UN’s special envoy, Finnish
diplomat Martti Ahtisaari.

Ahtisaari is expected to present the status plan within the next
few weeks. Prepared in close consultation with the EU and the
United States, the plan is said to involve a monitored or supervised
independence for Kosovo, with the EU largely in charge. By contrast,
Belgrade only offers "broad autonomy" for Kosovo within Serbia —
a position clearly unacceptable to Kosovo’s 90% Albanian population.
Moscow currently backs Belgrade in order to drag out any settlement.
However, Russia’s position is far from final. After some decent
interval, Moscow could any time shift its position and tacitly accept
Kosovo’s independence — for example, by abstaining in the U.N.
Security Council. It could do so in return for a Western quid-pro-quo
in some other theater or if it decides that settling one or more
post-Soviet conflicts on Russian terms would necessitate a "parallel"
solution in Kosovo.

While Moscow threatens to block the expected Ahtisaari plan, the
EU is redoubling expressions of confidence in its envoy. On behalf
of the EU’s 27 member countries, German Minister of Foreign Affairs
Frank-Walter Steinmeier reiterated on January 18 that Ahtisaari has
the EU’s "full confidence and support." The EU is already preparing
to provide support in building rule-of-law structures and police,
once a decision has been made on Kosovo’s status (German Presidency
of the EU to the OSCE Permanent Council, January 18).

Moscow insists that any decision on Kosovo’s eventual status — whether
autonomy within Serbia or internationally recognized independence —
should constitute a "precedent" or "model" for the resolution of the
four post-Soviet conflicts (Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia,
Karabakh). The implication is that any international recognition of
Kosovo’s independence would give Russia a free hand to "recognize"
the secession of its clients on the territories of Moldova, Georgia,
and Azerbaijan. By contrast, the EU and the United States underscore
the numerous features that differentiate the Kosovo conflict from
the four post-Soviet ones.

If Kosovo is to become a "precedent" or "general model" for post-Soviet
conflict settlement, then the countries targeted by Russian conflict
operations could effectively counter that argument. They can ask
for Western forces — or indeed predominantly civilian peacekeeping
operations — to replace Russian "peacekeeping" troops in the
post-Soviet conflict areas. International protectorates, administered
through the U.N. and the European Union, would replace the existing,
Russian-installed authorities in those areas. The ethnic cleansing
would be reversed as a first priority. The EU, OSCE, and Council of
Europe would supervise the introduction of democratic standards and
reform of the judiciary, replacing existing structures that operate
within the Russian special services’ chain of command. Such measures
in Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Karabakh would constitute
a real application of the existing Kosovo model or precedent.

–Vladimir Socor