German expert for Balkans Wolfgang Ischinger, creator of a plan to resolve the Kosovo issue based on model of two Germany, told the Belgrade-based daily Politika that solution to the Kosovo issue is not nearby.
He added he would be the first one to welcome if there would be a plan widely supported in the Serbian society and the Parliament as well as that the plan is also equally accepted in Kosovo. Then according to Ischinger there would be presumptions in place not to create a gun powder pot and new problems.
“At the moment we are miles away from such presumptions and conditions, and I can only strongly welcome what President Aleksandar Vucic told me, that he invests all his energy in searching possibilities to resolve this issue,” Ischinger said.
Ischinger who since 2009 chairs the largest world forum on deliberating challenges of the contemporary world – Munich Security Conference – is on a visit to Belgrade, where he will take part in the conference “Balkan dialogue” and he also had a working lunch with the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic.
Ischinger thanked President Vucic for an invitation to be his guest and to have an extensive conversation on that occasion, and he is also thankful to the President Vucic, since he responded to the invitation to take part at the Munich Security Forum in February this year, and together with many experts and politicians, including Hashim Thaci, discuss about possibilities to resolve the Kosovo issue.
Ischinger further said the most difficult problem in regulating Belgrade-Pristina relations is international recognition of the both entities, recalling that the so-called Ischinger’s plan referred to concluding the agreement between Belgrade and Pristina without mutual international recognition.
“Not much have changed over the last decade, the issue of international recognition is still a huge problem,” he pointed out. He added it is worth thinking if certain elements of the so-called Ischinger’s plan could be applied to the current situation.
“If someone has a better plan, it should be taken. However, if there is no such plan, maybe some elements of a plan from 2007 could be used,” he said.
If an agreement on the change of borders between Belgrade and Pristina could be reached, and if both governments and parliaments agree on that, then in principle, there is nothing from the perspective of the international law that could speak against such solution, Ischinger concluded in his interview to Politika.
