Will the EU be able to solve the Kosovo issue with minimum losses?

PanARMENIAN.Net - At the same time he mentioned that the solution to the issue of the status of Kosovo will be sui generis, i.e., unique, and must not become a model for other situations. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy Massimo D'Alema, who is going to be in the chair in the Security Council in December, declared that the members of the Council "haven't arrived at any concrete conclusions", but have called upon the parties "to keep the peace and desist from any actions, which could endanger the security of the region."

It's hardly possible that the diplomats and officials are not aware of the absurdity of such a decision, because the independent Kosovo will become a model by its definition. One may refuse it as much as he wants, but fact can't be changed. Maybe that's the reason why the USA has decided to place the burden of the decision making on the EU. Yet in Europe too there are a number of territories (Basques, Belgium, and Romania with Hungary) which being inspired by a "bad" example, will follow the Kosovo Albanians. What if someone comes to think that Corsica should be separated from France…? And the war will be unleashed, after which there will be nothing left from Europe. When Russia speaks against, it perhaps realizes better the consequences of such a solution of the problem. The truth is though, that for Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh the American-European variant is more preferable, regardless what they say about the impossibility of the precedent. According to the EU special representative to South Caucasus Peter Semneby, the Kosovo decision may not serve as a model for resolution of existing conflicts in post-Soviet areas. "On the one hand the ongoing processes in Kosovo may effect the regulations of the conflicts in the post-Soviet areas, since there are apprehensions based on the preferences of the parties, on the other hand, there are not," said Semneby.

Serbia makes use of every means, except the military ones, not to allow a one-sided proclamation of independence of Kosovo by the Albanian majority of the territory. This was announced by the Prime Minister of Serbia Vojislav Kostunica after the session of the UN Security Council on Wednesday, where the future status of Kosovo was being discussed. Kostunica once again emphasized that the solution to the problem must be found within the frames of the UNO. "Any attempt of violating the international law is unacceptable. One-sided proclamation of Kosovo independence with the assistance of western countries will upset the principles stated in the UNO Charter, and will become the beginning of a new era, where the power is above law," announced the Serbian Prime. In his turn, the President of Kosovo Fatmir Sejdu reminded the events of 1990's and added that "the recollections of the slaughter of the Kosovo Albanians in those years make the co-existence of Kosovo and Serbia in the frames of one state impossible."

"The new war in the Balkans is not far and it will start in Mitrovitsa," announced the strategy expert from Texas University Alan Cooperman. "Kosovo's independence will lead to war, and most probably the cause of war will be found in Mitrovitsa, the Serbian town in the north of Kosovo, because the next day of the proclamation of the sovereignty by the leaders of Pristine the ethnic Serbian police will immediately change the Kosovo uniforms with the old uniforms of the Serbian police, which they have been carefully keeping in their closets throughout all this time," quotes the Italian magazine La Stampa.

According to this scenario, the war will begin because the Albanian militants in Kosovo won't be able to put up with the fact that the Serbian police will patrol a whole district of the new State. Not to mention that Belgrade can direct its people and its measures to Mitrovitsa and take all the water resources of the entire Kosovo under its control.

The apprehensions of the USA connected with the fact that Mitrovitsa may become the reason of a new conflict, became more reasonable after the Government of Belgrade opened its representative office in the center of the city on December 11. The representatives of the UN Administration called the unexpected decision illegal and inadmissible. However, the Serbian Minister Slobodan Samardzic declared that "in case of one-sided proclamation of independence, Serbia will legally and diplomatically defend own territory and the rights of its nation to live within the borders recognized by international law." In other the Serbian representation in Kosovo will become the center of common legitimate power, which the Serbian police will obey.