Kosovo land swap could end conflict – or restart war

Big Think ^ | Jan 23, 2019 | Frank Jacobs

[CondoleezzaProtege]

- The Yugoslav Wars started in 1991, but never really ended.
- Kosovo and Serbia are still enemies, and they're getting worse.
- A proposed land swap could create peace – or reignite the conflict.

The government of Serbia has made its peace and established diplomatic relations with all other former Yugoslav countries, but not with Kosovo. In Serbian eyes, Kosovo's declaration of independence in 2008 was a unilateral and therefore legally invalid change of state borders.

Despite their current conflict, Kosovo and Serbia have the same long-term objective: Membership of the European Union. Ironically, that wish could lead to Yugoslav reunification some years down the road – within the EU. Slovenia and Croatia have already joined, and all other ex-Yugoslav states would like to follow their example. Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia have already submitted an official application. The EU considers Bosnia and Kosovo 'potential candidates'.

Kosovo is the main stumbling block on Serbia's road to EU membership. Even after the end of hostilities, skirmishes continued between the ethnically Albanian majority and the ethnically Serbian minority within Kosovo, and vice versa in Serbian territories directly adjacent. Tensions are dormant at best. A renewed outbreak of armed conflict is not unthinkable...

At the end of November, Kosovo was refused membership of Interpol, mainly on the insistence of Serbia. In retaliation, Kosovo imposed a 100% tariff on all imports from Serbia.

The protracted death of Yugoslavia will be over only when this simmering conflict is finally resolved. The best way to do that, politicians on both sides have suggested, is for the borders reflect the ethnic makeup of the frontier between Kosovo and Serbia.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

In blue: States that continue to recognize Serbia's sovereignty over Kosovo (most notably Russia and China, but also other major countries such as India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Iran).

In red: States that have recognized the independence of Kosovo (most EU member states – with the notable exceptions of Spain, Greece, Romania and Slovakia; and the U.S., Japan, Turkey and Egypt, among many others).

[D Rider]

...Greece, Romania and Slovakia... The countries that are closest and know the true history of the region. Albanians are the invaders. Note who Israel sides with. There is a strong reason for that also, if one cares to look.

[dfwgator]

Kosovo is Serbia.

[gunnut]

That war started way before 1991. It just simmered for decades while under totalitarian rule.

[Fiji Hill]

It’s interesting that Iran, Indonesia, the state with the largest Muslim population, several Arab states and several Muslim states in sub-Saharan Africa do not recognize the independence of Kosovo, a Muslim country.

[Truthoverpower]

Kick out the Muslims
Only answer

[kearnyirish2]

Let’s keep it simple; swap the land parcels that are contiguous to each, and Kosovo is ALBANIA...Too hard to keep up with these changes./s

[kearnyirish2]

Strange that the Western democracies that awarded all that land to Serbia after WWI then demanded they give it up 70 years later - bizarre.

[PapaBear3625]

The article glosses over “ethnic Albanian” = Muslim. This is a Muslim vs Christian conflict. If it re-ignites, Trump needs to keep the US out of supporting the Muslim side.

[Alas Babylon!]

Most of the post Cold War fighting in the FRY has been religious. Basically all are Southern Slavs, speak the same language, but Croatia was/is Catholic, Serbia was/is Eastern Orthodox, and Bosnia was/is Muslim.

The Kosovonians are not Southern Slavs but are ethnically distinct Albanians who are also Muslim.

I blame the Turks. Give Asia Minor back to the Greeks! Send the Turks back to the Central Asian Stans.

[Jimmy Valentine]

“The entirety of the Balkans are not worth the bones of one good Pomeranian grenadier.” - Bismarck

[Verginius Rufus]

The Muslims are the largest group in Bosnia but under 50% of the population.

The Albanians of Albania proper are about 70% Muslim, 20% Greek Orthodox, and 10% Catholic. (John Belushi, who would have been 70 years old yesterday, was of Albanian Christian heritage. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was an ethnic Albanian born in Macedonia.)

I think the Albanians in Kosovo are almost entirely Muslim, but besides the Serbian minority in Kosovo there is a small Croatian Catholic community dating back to Ottoman times who settled there when it was on the trade route between Dubrovnik and Constantinople.

[dfwgator]

The only good thing about Enver Hoxha is that he pretty much destroyed Islam in Albania during his rule, so that modern-day Albania is pretty much secular.

[Verginius Rufus]

I once heard a lecture about an archaeological site in Albania, Butrint, near the Greek border. Enver Hoxha was very proud of the excavation and when Nikita Khrushchev came to visit Albania, insisted on taking him there. (Khrushchev could not have cared less.) Because the site has poisonous snakes, workers were told to kill all the snakes they could find, but no one thought to tell them to get rid of the carcasses. So when Khrushchev visited the site, there were a lot of dead snakes laying around.