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Why no partition of Kosovo?

Tanjug, Belgrade’s government press agency, asked me this morning to comment on the possibility of dividing Kosovo.  The reason for this question was a statement of Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Ivica Dacic to media in Kosovo yesterday. Tanjug quoted him as saying that would be the only realistic and quick solution for both Serbia and Kosovo.

This was my reply:

There are two practical problems with the idea of dividing Kosovo:  1)  if Serbia gets the North, Kosovo will want the Albanian-majority Presevo area of southern Serbia, which Serbia will not give up; 2) Belgrade and Pristina would have to find a way of guaranteeing that partition of Kosovo would not lead to partition of Bosnia or Macedonia.  I don’t see how they would be able to give those guarantees.

As a matter of reciprocity, you can expect Pristina to ask for Albanians anything Belgrade gets for Serbs—Belgrade should be moderating its requests with this in mind.  It is also important to note that there are few important Serb religious sites in the North—most of the important churches and monasteries would in any event remain south of the Ibar, along with most of the Serb population.

The international community has demonstrated repeatedly that it does not want to move boundaries to accommodate ethnic differences, even though it has been willing to change the status of various boundaries (from internal boundaries to international borders).  This is at least in part because all the Balkans countries are expected to end up eventually in the European Union, where borders will disappear.  Belgrade has the real possibility of entering the European Union well before Kosovo, but only if it gives up any claims to its neighbor’s territory.

An added thought for readers of this blog:  why did I not appeal to the principle of multiethnicity?  The short answer is that I don’t really think there is much multiethnicity to be had in Kosovo today.  The Serb population is now likely under 10 per cent, even counting those who live north of the Ibar, and many of those are old and living in enclaves.  It is my hope that a Kosovo that remains whole will welcome Serbs back in the future, whether as visitors to the many Serb monuments and religious sites or as residents.  But it would be disingenuous to suggest that today Kosovo is truly a multiethnic society that must be preserved at all costs.  Let’s hope it becomes one, something far more likely to happen if it is not divided.