Since the meeting of the Kosovo leadership with Jonathan Moore, director of the Office for Southeast Europe at the U.S. State Department, which was quite out of the diplomatic framework, the government of Hashim Thaci is clear that there is no way out. Moore brought the message – you do not have an option, or a court under the auspices of the EU, or forget our friendship forever,” writes Frankfurter Neue Presse.
Citing diplomatic sources in Pristina, the U.S. is intensively lobbying for this type of the Court, because the State Department estimates that (if Kosovo parliament doesn’t decide on the establishment of the court) decision will be relocated to the United Nations, which will inevitably lead to tensions with Russia and would harm U.S. foreign policy.
“The Americans, already have a problem with Russia, which insists on the powers of the International Criminal Court (whose statute the U.S. has not ratified and advocate for ad hoc tribunals). Russia also stopped the adoption of Martti Ahtisaari plan in the UN (according to which Kosovo attained full independence). In this case, Americans are afraid that they would be too loud and that they would lose control over that process. Another reason why the office of Jonathan Moore is under pressure to convince Pristina is fear, about the facts that trials could reveal.”
There is no doubt that there is a concern that the investigation and trials could reveal things that, so far, were only at the level of assumptions, without concrete evidence, and one of them is for example, links of CIA agents and the KLA (if they existed and when).
Many ambassadors joined everyday lobbying the U.S. Ambassador in Pristina. That’s how the British Ambassador asked at a meeting ‘do you want that Russians decide about the Court’, while German Ambassador warned that if the establishment of the War crimes tribunal will be rejected, Kosovo will be charged for obstruction of justice.
