Month: April 2013
Keep going in the right direction
Here is my full testimony this afternoon to the Subcommitee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The prepared oral version (I was limited to five minutes) is below:
Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to testify on the pathway to peace for Kosovo and Serbia, which has been a long and difficult one. With your permission, I’ll summarize and submit my full testimony for the record.
I’d like to make five points:
- This is a good agreement. If fully implemented, it would go a long way to establishing democratically validated institutions as well as clear legal and police authority on the whole territory of Kosovo while allowing ample self-governance for Serbs in northern Kosovo on many other issues.
- Implementation will be a challenge, one that requires Pristina to make integration attractive and Belgrade to end the financing that makes resistance in northern Kosovo possible. Belgrade and Pristina will need to cooperate to end the smuggling of tax-free goods that has enriched organized crime and spoilers, both Serb and Albanian.
- The agreement should end any discussion of exchange of territory between Kosovo and Serbia, which is a bad idea that risks destabilizing Bosnia, Macedonia and even Serbia proper. We should work to make northern Kosovo a model of win/win reintegration for the rest of the Balkans.
- Belgrade and Pristina have taken an important step towards normalizing relations, but they will need to do more, including eventual recognition and exchange of ambassadors. If that does not happen, neither will be able to get into the EU and both may try to arm themselves for a possible new confrontation. In accordance with this agreement, each will apply for EU membership as an independent and sovereign state.
- We owe props to the EU and in particular Catherine Ashton, not only for the mediation work she did but also for the vital incentives the EU provided. The US government shares supporting actor credit with leading Lady Ashton, which is as it should be.
Mr. Chairman, I am relieved that an agreement has been reached, but still concerned about the future. The Belgrade/Pristina dialogue is a classic case of elite pact-making without a broader peacebuilding process. The underlying drivers of conflict have not been addressed. Many Serbs and Kosovo Albanians still think badly of each other and rank themselves as victims. There has been little mutual acknowledgement of harm. Few Albanians and Serbs have renewed personal ties. It is becoming increasingly difficult to do so as many younger people lack a common language other than English. It is almost 14 years since the end of the NATO/Yugoslavia war. To be self-sustaining, this peace process is going to need to go deeper and involve many more citizens on both sides.
The road is long, Mr. Chairman, but we are near its end and we need to keep going in the right direction.
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Not ideal, but clearly a step forward
Lady Ashton’s patience has paid off. Belgrade and Priština have finally reached a compromise on integration of four Serb-dominated municipalities of northern Kosovo into the country’s regular institutions. Although the agreement is not ideal since it preserves ethnic-based political divisions, it is clearly a step forward, likely to resolve a number of currently burning issues.
What could prove a serious problem is implementation. Northern Kosovo Serbs have announced they will strongly resist any attempt to enforce the agreement on them. They can count on support from far-right extremists in Serbia who are already mobilizing. Even prime minister Ivica Dačić and his deputy Aleksandar Vučić are receiving hundreds of SMS messages with terrible death threats after their mobile phone numbers have been publicly revealed by members of Vučić’s former ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party. Moreover, a couple of days ago an extremist from the pro-Russian clerical fascist movement “Naši” approached and verbally attacked Dačić during the Belgrade marathon.
While militant nationalists in Serbia may not be as numerous as before, they still pose a considerable threat, in the first place to public safety. Now that Dačić and Vučić are also potentially at risk, they could use it as a well-grounded justification to finally crack down on the militants before it has become too late.
It is hard to say who among Serbian politicians will benefit most from the deal with Priština. Latest opinion polls indicate that more than 50 percent of the public support both the dialogue in general and this particular agreement, but they are at the same time feeling largely fed up with both Kosovo and the European perspective. People want to see a concrete improvement in their standard of living.
In terms of future relationships between Kosovo and Serbia, the dynamic between the two countries will be as important to watch as that within each of them alone. For full-fledged normalization the imperative must be to put an end to deep-rooted mutual distrust between ordinary Albanians and Serbs, not only in Kosovo but also in Serbia. That will require intensive cooperation and a great deal of good will on the part of both governments.
Even more important will be developments inside the European Union in relation to its own crisis, which seems far from over. It is only European integration that is somehow still keeping the Western Balkans relatively calm. The more the crisis deepens, the lesser will be the ability of Brussels to keep the region under control.
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The storm passes but clouds remain
Ganimete Asllani-Price, who is doing her doctorate at Queen’s University Belfast, writes:
On Sunday, Kosovo’s parliament convened to discuss and vote on the initialed agreement reached between Serbia and Kosovo on Friday. Getting parliament’s backing was hugely important for the government. Out of the 95 members of parliament (MP) who voted (there are 120 in total), 89 backed the agreement. This 74 percent approval gives Prime Minister Thaci a boost.
But the discussion in parliament was more nuanced. The majority of opinions expressed before the voting had the same message – members accept the agreement in principle, but worry about wording and implementation. The opposition parties (with one important exception discussed below) agreed on the need to negotiate with Serbia and reach an agreement, but they questioned some of the fifteen points and reserved the right to change their minds when implementation becomes an issue. We may well see more criticism during the next electoral campaign.
The Self-Determination Movement (Levizja Vetendosje) is not waiting. It continued its protest within and outside the parliament building against the negotiation process as a whole and the agreement in particular. They maintain that Thaci is selling Kosovo, that he is not the leader of Kosovo people but a coward and a traitor who serves the European Union and the United States.
For those who follow daily politics in Kosovo, the agreement has become part of the daily political abuse and personal exchanges that has characterized the negotiation process, not only in Kosovo but in Serbia as well. Thus discussion about next steps has not concentrated on the substance or implementation, but on personalities.
Out of the 5 votes that were cast against the agreement, there is one that Thaci and his government need to worry about. The co-founder of his political party and speaker of parliament, Jakup Krasniqi, voted against. Thaci and Krasniqi have been at odds for a while. If Krasniqi breaks with Thaci, it could endanger the majority coalition. Krasniqi’s main concerns are about possible future compromises that may have to be made in order to honor the current agreement. This was a carefully worded warning.
The immediate reaction of the Serbs in the north was decidedly negative, as expected. Serbia, which for the past 14 years has provided a lifeline to them, will have to play a major role in implementation there. Kosovo can do little in the north, as its unilateral attempt to seize border posts there two years ago demonstrated.
In Pristina, the storm is passing, but clouds remain. Any political damage will become apparent in the weeks, months, and possibly years to come, since the hardest part will unquestionably be the implementation of the fifteen points. Self-Determination continues to advocate a referendum on union with Albania, a proposition that Kosovo’s current constitution does not permit. The majority of Kosovo Albanians do not support it. But that could change. The Albanians displaced from northern Kosovo might rise in rebellion as Serbs in the north have. They are the ones who currently are the biggest losers in Kosovo. This agreement does not bring them any closer to their homes.
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Don’t believe a word
These are early days in the investigation of the Boston marathon bombings. Suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has barely begun to communicate. Investigators have just begun to look into his older brother’s six-month trip to Russia last year. They need to question family, friends and associates, both here and abroad. They also need to study the brothers’ online habits, emails and telephone communications.
So whatever we know today about their motives, there is much more that we don’t know. Is there an international nexus? Did they act on their own? What role did the older brother’s increasing religiosity play? What role did personal disappointments and disillusionment play? How did Dzhokhar square his apparent comfort with life in America with random murder? Where did they get their substantial arsenal? Who manufactured it? Did others know about it? How and why did they pick their target? What were their post-bombing plans?
I don’t expect definitive answers to these questions from investigation leaks or from the White House spokesman. Definitive answers will not be available until serious people–more often than not they are journalists–devote months and even years to uncovering the truth. Court proceedings are rarely sufficient for a full understanding, as they are targeted on conviction. What you need to convict can be dramatically different from what you need to understand.
So we all need to be patient and skeptical. It’s tough to accept in this age of instant communications, but the definitive word on the Boston marathon bombings is likely to come in words printed on paper. Rumor and innuendo will prevail until then. Don’t believe a word, for now.
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Done deal, now the hard part
Belgrade and Pristina have both confirmed their agreement to the 15-point “First Agreement of Principles Governing the Normalization of Relations.” As a result, the European Commission has recommended that the EU open accession negotiations with Serbia and negotiations for a Stabilization and Association Agreement with Kosovo. The Kosovo parliament has already voted in favor of the agreement. The Serbian parliament will consider it this week.
Hooah! as the Marines shout. Congratulations are due especially to Catherine Ashton, the EU’s High Representative, for sticking with this and using the leverage Chancellor Merkel’s insistence on abolition of “parallel structures” in northern Kosovo provided. In a period when Europe is on the ropes, this small victory in its (very) near abroad is particularly welcome. Kudos also to the US government, which played a vital supporting role. This was not “leading from behind” but rather supporting from the wings. It was the right role and well played.
Now comes the hard part. Implementation is never automatic in the Balkans, though the European Commission’s report includes a positive picture of how the previous “technical” agreements are being implemented. The problem now is that the current leadership of the population in northern Kosovo is opposed to integration into Pristina’s police, judicial and electoral frameworks, which is the heart of the new agreement.
Pristina should of course do its best to make integration attractive. It can do this by making funding available for the north and moving with “all deliberated speed” on implementation. Provoking the northerners will do Pristina no good. Provocative language and actions should be avoided. At the same time, the agreement is admirably clear and requires concrete steps be taken. Transparency is important: people need to know what to expect. There will be resistance. Pristina needs to be patient, but firm.
Belgrade has an even greater, if less visible, role. Northern resistance is financed with funding from Belgrade security institutions and from smuggling. Both need to shut down. Some northerners will not want to stay in Kosovo. Their entirely voluntary movement needs to be welcomed in Serbia. Belgrade and Pristina need to collaborate in blocking the illicit trade in goods that are brought into northern Kosovo tax-free from Serbia only to be returned to Serbia or sold south of the Ibar in Kosovo. The political economy is no less important than the politics.
While relieved that an agreement has been reached, I am still concerned about the future. The Belgrade/Pristina dialogue is a classic case of elite pact-making without a broader peacebuilding process. The underlying drivers of conflict have not been addressed. Kosovo Albanians and Serbs, both in Serbia and in Kosovo, still think badly of each other and rank themselves as victims. There has been little mutual acknowledgement of harm in the public sphere. Few Albanians and Serbs have renewed personal ties with the other. It is becoming increasingly difficult to do so as many younger people literally lack a common language (other than English).
It is almost 14 years since the end of the NATO/Yugoslavia war. Europe, which played a supporting role in that conflict, has now played the lead. But it needs Belgrade and Pristina to continue to play their parts. Leverage from the negotiations–respectively for accession and for Stabilization and Association–will be important. But to be self-sustaining, this peace process is going to need to go deeper and involve many more citizens on both sides.
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Peace Picks April 22-26:
1. Between Turkish Sunnis and Iranian Shia Influences: Islamic Revival in Azerbaijan
Date and Time: April 22nd 2013, 4:00-5:00 pm
Location: Woodrow Wilson Center
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20004
Speakers: Bayram Balci
Description: Azerbaijan has historically experienced three main influences, Russian secularism, Ottoman Sunnism and Iranian Shiism. In the two decades since the end of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan is once again a space of competition between different religious influences. An Islamic revival underway in Azerbaijan has awakened the old cleavage between Shia and Sunni Islam.
Bayram Balci contends that the Islamic influences from Iran (Shia) and from Turkey (Sunni) are recreating new dividing lines between Azerbaijani Shia and Sunni Muslims. In his talk he will analyze the various aspects of Shia and Sunni revival, including the roles played by Turkey and Iran, and how Azerbaijan is reacting to these new religious cleavages.
Register for this event here: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/between-turkish-sunnis-and-iranian-shia-influences-islamic-revival-azerbaijan
2. The Kurdish Initiative v2.0: Can Turkey Resolve it This Time?
Date and Time: April 23rd 2013, 12:00-1:30 pm
Location: Georgetown University
37 St NW and O St NW, Washington, DC
Intercultural Center 241
Speakers: Hamid Akin Unver
Description: Emerging from the ashes of a similar attempt in 2009, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has launched a more ambitious process in late-2012 towards the peaceful resolution of its most fundamental problem: the Kurdish question. The ‘new deal’ touches upon almost all of the taboo issues of the question, including the disarmament and disbanding of the PKK, formulating a new definition of citizenship in the new Constitution and easing the imprisonment terms of the organization’s dreaded leader, Abdullah Öcalan. But what is different this time? What led to this new process and can it work? What are the potential opportunities and pitfalls? Will the new process spill-over to Syria and Iraq, and how will it change the dynamics of the region’s power dynamics?
Register for this event here: http://unver.eventbrite.com/
3. How Turkey’s Islamists Fell Out of Love with Iran: The Near Future of Turkish-Iranian Relations
Date and Time: April 23rd 2013, 3:00-4:00 pm
Location: Woodrow Wilson Center
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20004
Speakers: Hamid Akin Unver
Description: Turkish-Iranian relations have long been characterized by ideological polarity. Ever since the Ottoman expansion into the Levant in the early sixteenth century and the Safavid Empires acceptance of Shiism as the official imperial religion, relations between these two empires have been defined along the prime schism in Islam. From 1520 to 1920s this schism defined Ottoman-Safavid relations. Akin Unver argues that it was only during the modernist-revolutionary period of Ataturk and Shah Pahlavi that Iran and Turkey established good relations on secular-modernist lines, which defined the course of the relationship until the Islamic Revolution.
After the 1979 revolution, Irans Islamist regime emerged as the clear anti-thesis of a secular Turkey and two countries relationship was only sustained by political Islamists on both sides. According to Unver, this 1979-2010 Islamist connection is also being reversed by the sectarian faultlines unearthed by the Arab Spring. Irans rapid fall from grace with Turkish Islamists is one of the most important recent structural shifts in the Middle East, Unver suggests. Such a break is far from marginal and yields several important points for consideration.
This shift, Unver argues, validates the Ataturk- Pahlavi example, which shows that detente in Turkish-Iranian relations can only happen when both countries are ruled by a secular-modernist regime. If either countrys ruling government has an Islamist identity, relations can only improve to the extent dictated by the Ottoman-Safavid divide. If Islamism dictates both countries policies, then strategic conflict is inevitable, and the Sunni-Shiite historical memories and symbolism related to Karbala are evoked by both sides.
Register for this event here: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/how-turkey’s-islamists-fell-out-love-iran-the-near-future-turkish-iranian-relations
4. Iran Unveiled: How the Revolutionary Guards is turning Theocracy into Military Dictatorship
Date and Time: April 23rd 2013, 4:30 pm
Location: American Enterprise Institute
1150 17th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20036
Speakers: Ali Alfoneh, Frederick W. Kagan- , Mehdi Khalaji, Karim Sadjadpour
Description: Iran is currently experiencing the most important change since the revolution of 1979: the regime in Tehran, traditionally ruled by the Shia clergy, is transforming into a military dictatorship dominated by the officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). As IRGC commanders have infiltrated Iran’s political, economic, and cultural spheres, they have eschewed diplomatic norms and left few policy options for the US other than to unsuccessfully contain the threat. Is Washington prepared to tailor its strategy based on an evolving Iranian power structure? What will further advances by IRGC leaders portend for Iran’s strategic calculations? Ali Alfoneh explores these and other issues in his new book ‘Iran Unveiled: How the Revolutionary Guards Is Turning Theocracy into Military Dictatorship’ (AEI Press, April 2013). At this event, Alfoneh and panelists will discuss the rise of the IRGC in Iran and the resulting challenges for American interests in the Middle East and beyond.
Register for this event here: http://www.aei.org/events/2013/04/23/iran-unveiled-how-the-revolutionary-guards-is-turning-theocracy-into-military-dictatorship/
5. The Future of Israel and Palestine: Expanding the Debate
Date and Time: April 25th 2013, 9:00 am
Location: Rayburn House Office Building
45 Independence Ave SW, Washington, DC
B338 & B339
Speakers: Stephen Walt, Henry Siegman, Philip Weiss, Hussein Ibish
Description: The Middle East Policy Council invites you and your colleagues to our 72nd Capitol Hill Conference. This special conference will be a discussion about expanding the space in U.S. media to encourage a more frank public debate on U.S. foreign policy toward Israel. Live streaming of this event will begin at approximately 9:30am EST on Thursday, April 25th and conclude around noon. A questions and answers session will be held at the end of the proceedings. Refreshments will be served.
Register for this event here: http://www.mepc.org/hill-forums/frank-discussion-israel
6. The New Egypt: Challenges of the Post-Revolutionary Era
Date and Time: April 25th 2013, 1:15-5:15
Location: Center for Strategic & International Studies
B1 Conference Center 1800 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20006
Description: Following its 2011 revolution, Egypt has been undergoing a period of political upheaval and transition toward a still uncertain new order. The direction the country chooses – and its future relations with the West and its Middle Eastern neighbors – will have profound ramifications throughout its region and the wider world.
The panels include some of Egypt’s most prominent personalities, who have been at the forefront of developments in post-revolutionary Egypt, presenting a unique opportunity to discuss the country’s future global role and policies with some of the most influential actors in Cairo. The panelists are part of a larger delegation of Egyptian leaders attending the inaugural conference of a new global forum, the Williamsburg-CSIS Forum, a meeting that constitutes the first such high-level gathering outside Egypt since the fall of the Mubarak regime just over two years ago.
Register for this event by emailing: williamsburgforum@csis.org
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