Great powers always have plan B, and unless the Belgrade and Pristina agreements come to an end, all leads towards the outbreak of localized armed conflicts in Kosovo, assesses Dusan Janjic from the Forum for Ethnic Relations, visiting regional broadcaster TV N1.
Janjic assesses that the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina is in a deadlock, and the position means that you can no longer take any move and that you must play something new, “what the Americans would say, something creative.”
“The Serbs would say give us some territory to give up from Kosovo and the Kosovo side replies with the maximal goals.”
Since the murder of Oliver Ivanovic, we have all the signals that this is a serious political destabilization of Kosovo, Serbia and the Western Balkans, and it looks like it takes the elements of a silent armed conflicts, ” warns Janjic. He points out that the great powers never play by the plan A, but they always have a plan B.
“American policy is a policy of conflict management – they will offer you to come to the White House and settle it peacefully, and if that fails, they will realize goals. What is the American goal in the Balkans? To reduce costs, to reduce military presence, transfer it to NATO, to the Europeans, which means they need to connect the military and security work that NATO will undoubtedly do: Montenegro – Kosovo – Macedonia. I am afraid that this policy to pressure the authorities in Pristina to remove the tax, them to give up before Vucic, and on the other hand to support Kosovo in maximalist goals, would result in armed conflicts,” says Janjic.
“And to tell you the banal thing, I asked the Kosovo politicians: ‘If conflicts arise, what do you think how many people will leave the Balkans, including Kosovo?’ They say: ‘Million and half will leave’ and I ask, ‘And if there is a visa liberalization?’, They say again: ‘Million and half.’ We are the part of world movements – the Balkans will be emptied, either natural or faster, and there is a need to receive people from Syria and Central Asia somewhere,” explains Janjic.
He pointed out that he was talking about localized armed conflicts and reminded that in the 1990s, “when the state was stronger”, it was enough that Seselj’s people go to Slavonia and oppose the guards, so the conflict starts.
“Today, you have about 1,500 ISIL fighters in the Balkans, and how many Donbas fighters you have? Private training companies. Extreme parties marching? The authorities in Orasac allowed extremists to approach the prime minister, the government is playing with extremists. There is no fight against extremism and they get their own space,” he recalls.
