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The Serbia-Kosovo Dialogue: Ripe for Resolution?

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The Serbia-Kosovo Dialogue: Ripe for Resolution? The Serbia-Kosovo Dialogue: Ripe for Resolution? By Leon Hartwell The Serbia-Kosovo Dialogue: Ripe for Resolution? CONTENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR Executive Summary ......................................... 1 Dr. Leon Hartwell is a Title VIII Transatlantic Introduction ....................................................... 2 Leadership Fellow at the Center for European Background ......................................................... 2 Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington, D.C. He Key Factors Determining Ripeness ............ 5 specializes in mediation, negotiation, and conflict resolution. Key Findings ...................................................... 23 Policy Recommendations ............................... 24 Endnotes .............................................................. 28 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author would like to thank Donald N. Jensen, Edward Lucas, Jason Israel, Bodo Weber, Visar Xhambazi, and Benjamin Zalinger for their ABOUT CEPA valuable feedback during the research process. This research project would also not have been The Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) possible without the wonderful support of works to reinvent Atlanticism for a more secure CEPA’s Transatlantic Leadership Team, notably future. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., and Milda Matačiūnaitė-Boyce and Bruna Celic, as led by seasoned transatlanticists and emerging well as CEPA’s Communications Team, especially leaders from both sides of the Atlantic, CEPA Michael Newton. Last, but not least, the author brings an innovative approach to the foreign would like to thank the generous support from policy arena. Our cutting-edge analysis and the U.S. State Department for the Title VIII timely debates galvanize communities of influence while investing in the next generation Program. of leaders to understand and address present and future challenges to transatlantic values and principles. CEPA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, public policy institution. All opinions are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. Cover: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping walk down the stairs as they arrive for a BRICS summit in Brasilia, Brazil November 14, 2019. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino. ii The Serbia-Kosovo Dialogue: Ripe for Resolution? to end the dispute, at least not under Executive Summary current conditions and in a manner During the last year of the Trump that will produce a prompt and administration, the U.S. broke too many comprehensive agreement. eggs in the Serbia-Kosovo dialogue without making an omelet. Following the landmark • The main influencers, Russia and China, transition from President Donald Trump to are undermining the normalization President Joe Biden, and in the context of process. Russia is set on protecting its the September 4, 2020, agreement between energy interests in Serbia and keeping the Serbia and Kosovo brokered by the Trump Western Balkan countries out of the EU administration in Washington, D.C., it is and NATO. China’s goal is not necessarily important to reassess U.S. mediation efforts to undermine the normalization process, in the Serbia-Kosovo dispute. This policy but its developing relationship with paper will ask how “ripe for resolution” Serbia may compromise Serbia’s ability the dispute is and whether U.S. and other to integrate into the EU, which in turn diplomatic efforts are pushing it toward makes it more difficult for the EU to use resolution. prospective membership as a carrot for normalization. Normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo should ideally include: • Divisions within the EU mean that the dialogue lacks a clear, explicit goal • Serbia’s recognition of Kosovo’s — sovereignty for Kosovo — which independence. weakens the process. • A solution to issues of insecurity • Trump’s special envoy for the Serbia- between the two entities. Kosovo dialogue, Ambassador Richard Grenell, undermined the chances for a • Guarantees and promotion of minority comprehensive agreement by splitting rights. the dialogues into one led by the U.S. • Some form of transitional justice. on economic matters and another led by the EU on political issues. A package deal This paper examines the following factors jointly coordinated with the EU stands a and their role in promoting and preventing much greater chance of succeeding than normalization of relations between Serbia Grenell’s fractionating approach. and Kosovo: Given that a comprehensive agreement 1. The key issues underpinning the dispute. between Serbia and Kosovo is not in sight, this paper recommends that the U.S. return 2. The main players (adversaries, to the long game in Serbia and Kosovo by: influencers and mediators). • Maintaining the position of U.S. special 3. Contextual factors. envoy for the Western Balkans. 4. Strategies available to the adversaries in • Protecting Kosovo’s independence and pursuit of their goals. territorial integrity. The main finding of this research paper is • Supporting liberal democracy in the that the Serbia-Kosovo dispute is not ripe Balkans. for resolution: • Acting in tandem with the EU and U.K. • The two top issues, sovereignty and security, are notoriously difficult to resolve. The adversaries are not ready 1 The Serbia-Kosovo Dialogue: Ripe for Resolution? Introduction The dispute between Serbia The dispute between Serbia and Kosovo and Kosovo is often referred is often referred to as a “frozen conflict,” but that term encourages a false sense of to as a “frozen conflict,” security.1 As the fighting over Nagorno- but that term encourages Karabakh in 2020 showed, frozen conflicts can heat back up. On May 12, 2020, long a false sense of security before the White House talks in September and the more recent European Union-led initiatives that brought Serbs and Kosovars Background to the table, Balkans expert Janusz Bugajski The crumbling of the Socialist Federal noted that although the Serbia-Kosovo 2 Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), which dialogue “hasn’t died, it smells.” Bugajski’s existed from 1963 to 1992, began in Kosovo. words still ring true. SFRY consisted of six republics — Bosnia In the mid-1990s, the U.S. built credibility and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, in the Balkans by playing a central role Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia — and in ending some of the main conflicts and two autonomous entities inside Serbia, halting genocide. Its success was so great Vojvodina and Kosovo. In 1987, the then- that some experts talk about U.S. “path president of the League of Communists dependency” in the Balkans, especially in of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević, made a peacemaking.3 During the last year of the landmark speech to a crowd of angry Serbs Trump administration, however, some in Pristina declaring, “No one should dare 7 inside the U.S. State Department and among to beat you.” His speech was misleading close European allies increasingly criticized as Kosovo Albanians in the 1980s were the 8 the U.S. approach to the Serbia-Kosovo prime victims of systematic discrimination. dialogue.4 The Biden administration has an Nonetheless, Milošević actively promoted opportunity to resituate U.S. foreign policy the dangerous process of “othering,” and in the Balkans in a manner that is bipartisan henceforth, ditched Yugoslavism for Serbian and geared toward serving long-term U.S. nationalism, sparking a series of violent 9 interests. conflicts. The primary question guiding this research By 1992, Milošević was at the helm of rump is whether the Serbia-Kosovo conflict is Yugoslavia, which consisted only of Serbia “ripe for resolution.”5 Peace studies scholar and Montenegro. His promotion of Serbian William Zartman coined the term “ripeness” nationalism and “Greater Serbia” — that is, to describe the timing of peacemaking.6 It is uniting all Serbs in one territory, including based on the assumption that parties to a those outside Serbia — led to increased conflict will make peace only when a range discrimination against non-Serbs, some of of conditions favor such an outcome. In the whom suffered mass atrocities, including absence thereof, mediators will struggle to genocide. Consequently, Kosovo Albanians bring a dispute to a halt, even when the began to push for the independence of mediator is seemingly powerful. The final Kosovo. section explores policy recommendations relevant to U.S. policymakers. 2 The Serbia-Kosovo Dialogue: Ripe for Resolution? Key events in the run-up to Kosovo’s declaration of independence 1987 (April 24): Slobodan Milošević delivers a speech in Kosovo that further incites ethnic tensions between Serbs and Kosovar Albanians. 1989 (May 8): Milošević becomes president of Serbia. 1990 ( January 20-22): Slovenian, Croatian and Macedonian delegates abandon the last Congress of the Communist League of Yugoslavia and the party is dissolved. 1991 ( June 25): Slovenia and Croatia declare independence. 1991 ( June 27): Start of Ten-Day War in Slovenia, which lasts until July 6, 1991. 1991 (September 25): Macedonia declares independence. 1991 (October 8): Croatia declares independence from Yugoslavia. 1991-1995: Croatia enters a four-year war with the Yugoslav army. 1992 (March 3): Bosnia declares independence. 1992-1995: The Bosnian war begins April 6, 1992, and ends on December 14, 1995. Bosnian Serbs with the support of Milošević’s rump Yugoslavia commit mass atrocities against non-Serbs. 1994 (April): NATO carries out the first airstrikes in its history against Bosnian Serbs targets.
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