The recent agreement between Kosovo and Serbia
was hailed as a victory by the United States.
However, in fact it actually creates all sorts of new problems for Belgrade and Pristina
- not least of all over Israel.
So, what is the deal and why is it causing so much trouble?
[MUSIC]
Hello and Welcome.
If you're new to the channel, my name is James Ker-Lindsay and here I discuss
international relations, with an emphasis on independence statehood and the origins of countries.
The news that Kosovo and Serbia had signed an agreement to normalize their economic relations,
at the White House on 4 September, was hailed as yet another success for the United States
- especially coming so soon after it brokered the historic recognition agreement
between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
However, while the Trump Administration has presented the deal as a major step forward
for peace in the Balkans, in truth it does little to improve relations between Kosovo and Serbia.
It certainly wasn't the major breakthrough that many had expected.
More to the point, the agreement complicates their relations with a number
of key partners around the world.
Perhaps the most interesting and unexpected element of the whole story was the inclusion
of Israel as a central feature of the agreement.
So, what happened?
As regular viewers will know, I've already looked at Kosovo in a couple of other videos.
I've put the links in the description below.
Nevertheless, it's perhaps worth recapping the background to the story.
Kosovo was a largely ethnic Albanian-inhabited autonomous province of Serbia within
the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
As Yugoslavia disintegrated, Kosovo pressed for independence alongside the other republics.
However, this was rejected by the international community
and in 1995 an armed insurgency was launched.
Four years later, in 1999, following a series of harsh reprisals by Serbian forces, NATO intervened.
Following a 78-day bombing campaign, Kosovo was placed under United Nations administration
pending a final settlement on its status.
In early 2006, UN-sponsored status talks began.
While Serbia was willing to offer extensive autonomy, Kosovo demanded full independence.
And in early 2008, after two years of fruitless talks, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence.
While this was immediately recognized by the United States and most of the European Union,
it was strongly opposed by Serbia and other leading actors on the world stage such as Russia and China.
In the years that followed, Kosovo and Serbia waged an intense diplomatic battle over recognition.
However, alongside this the European Union began a process aimed at normalising relations
between Belgrade and Pristina in a number of day-to-day areas.
However, by 2019, the EU talks had effectively reached a stalemate.
Although the two sides had reached several seemingly important agreements,
few of these had been implemented.
Meanwhile, Kosovo's hopes of full international acceptance had stalled.
While half the members of the UN recognized it, the other half didn't.
At the same time, Serbia had managed to persuade a number of countries to rescind their recognitions.
It was against this backdrop of stalled international recognition, and a stagnant normalization process,
that the United States began to take an increasingly keen interest in the problem.
In October 2019, Richard Grenell, the US ambassador to Germany and a loyal ally of President Trump,
was named as Special Presidential Envoy for the Serbia and Kosovo Peace Negotiations.
Over the course of the following months, Grenell secured high-profile agreements in a number of areas,
including air and rail transport between Serbia and Kosovo.
And by June 2020 there was growing speculation that the United States was preparing a major push
to secure a final agreement between Kosovo and Serbia.
While this was always unlikely, the whole initiative was scuppered just days before the leaders were due to meet
when news emerged that a special court set up to investigate crimes committed in 1999
had issued an indictment against the President of Kosovo.
The Washington meeting was therefore called off.
At this point, most felt that this was the end of us efforts for the time being.
With Trump trailing in the polls, many thought that attention would turn to the elections in November.
Even Grenell seemed to admit defeat and leave further talks to the European Union.
However, the situation suddenly and radically changed in August.
The major announcement that the United Arab Emirates had recognised Israel,
becoming the first Arab state in over 20 years to do so, appeared to change things.
Widely seen to be a major foreign policy victory for the Trump Administration,
it seemed to provide an impetus to secure another foreign policy win before the election.
Serbia and Kosovo now became the perfect target.
There's no doubt that the major peace agreement settling Kosovo on the basis of mutual recognition and
UN membership for Kosovo would be a huge victory.
The problem is that this always seemed unlikely.
Few believe that the necessary elements of a comprehensive final deal were in place.
Meanwhile, an economic deal, as important as this is for those living in the region,
would mean next to nothing for the wider US public.
It certainly wouldn't be the major foreign policy win needed for the election campaign.
To this extent, the Trump Administration needed to find a way to square this circle.
Rather than focus on the unachievable, or the politically insignificant,
Washington now completely rewrote the script.
On Friday, 4 September 2020, and watched by the international media,
the President of Serbia and the Prime Minister of Kosovo met in the Oval Office at the White House
to simultaneously sign separate agreements with the United States.
But what did the deal really say?
In essence, the agreement had three parts.
The first was focused on relations between Serbia and Kosovo.
Here there was actually relatively little new.
It was largely a list of things that had already in fact been agreed to
on things like transport and the recognition of diplomas.
To this extent, the agreement was really another promise to implement what had already been accepted.
One interesting bit of news, though, was that Serbia and Kosovo
agreed to limit their recognition battle for a year.
Kosovo wouldn't apply to join any international organizations.
Meanwhile, Serbia would put its effort to persuade countries not to recognize Kosovo
- or to withdraw that recognition - on hold.
However, it was the next section that things started to become interesting.
Serbia and Kosovo signed up to a number of pledges.
These included energy diversification,
which was seen as a coded message for Serbia to loosen its ties to Russia,
and an agreement not to purchase telecoms equipment from "untrusted vendors"
- a barely disguised promise not to buy from China.
They also agreed to plug into several US intelligence networks,
and outlaw Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group.
To many, the deal seemed like a US-wish list of foreign policy goals
it would like every country in the world to sign up to.
But it was the final bullet point, and the only point on which the two documents differed,
that left most observers truly stunned.
In an unexpected move, it was announced that Israel and Kosovo would recognize each other.
For Kosovo, this was a huge win.
It had long hoped to secure Israel's recognition.
Moreover, and crucially, Serbia also agreed to relocate its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
And, in fact, it was also later clarified by the Israeli Government
that Kosovo would also establish its embassy in Jerusalem.
This immediately sparked a backlash.
As quickly noted, such a move goes against UN Security Council resolution 478,
which called on states not to establish a diplomatic presence in the city.
It also goes against the policy of their closest partners.
It was telling that the European Union soon voiced its concerns about the news
and warned that it could have serious effects on their european integration process.
But it goes further than this.
For Kosovo, which was painted as a Muslim-majority country by the White House,
rather than as a European state,
this will inevitably undermine its standing in the Islamic world.
While the decision to recognize Israel is not necessarily problematic,
especially given the recent deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain,
opening an embassy in Jerusalem will be seen as a step too far.
Turkey, a staunch ally of Kosovo, issued a strongly worded statement hinting that if Pristina didn't respect
the rights of the Palestinians, it could jeopardize further recognition from Muslim countries.
It's also not helpful for a country that hopes to join the United Nations,
and will be expected to show that it aligns itself with the UN Charter when it applies,
to be seen to have ignored a UN resolution.
Likewise, Serbia comes out of it very badly - perhaps even more so.
For a country that's trying to press the case for respect for UN resolutions, namely Resolution 1244,
which is the basis for its ongoing claim to sovereignty over Kosovo,
ignoring another UN resolution is really not a good look.
In fact the whole thing is proving to be a real embarrassment for Belgrade.
Kosovo at least got recognition from Israel.
Serbia not only saw another country recognise Kosovo, the first in almost three years,
it then very publicly rewarded Israel for this hugely embarrassing diplomatic setback.
In fact, the agreement is so bad for Serbia, it has given rise to theories that Serbia wasn't in fact aware
that it had agreed to relocate its Embassy as part of the agreement.
In other words, that it was tricked into signing the deal.
Indeed, the pictures of the Serbian President apparently looking confused, and then exasperated,
as President Trump announced the Embassy move were widely circulated on social media.
But could this have happened? It's certainly possible.
While it seems that Serbia had in fact been planning to make the move as a thank you to Israel
for all its help in stopping countries from recognising Kosovo, it would obviously not have agreed to do this if it
knew that Israel then would have turned round and recognised Kosovo itself.
Such a view is also given credence by reports that suggest that Serbia has stated that it won't in fact open
an embassy in Jerusalem now if Israel does go ahead and recognise Kosovo.
Meanwhile, others have taken a more conspiratorial view and have argued that Serbia had been promised
something by Washington.
Of course, this may also be true.
But it would have to be something truly significant given the damage the incident did to the Serbian Government's
standing internationally and back home in Serbia
- where such a humiliating outcome was viewed with horror and disbelief.
Needless to say, it will be interesting to watch how all this plays out from here.
The White House agreement between Serbia and Kosovo was hailed by the Trump Administration
as a major victory for peace in the Balkans.
In truth, it was nothing of the sort.
It certainly wasn't the comprehensive deal that many had perhaps expected.
At best, it was a rehash of things that had already been agreed, mainly under European Union auspices,
with a partial moratorium on the long-standing recognition battle.
That said, the deal was a master stroke in another way.
For Washington, it was a huge victory.
Instead of trying to get a major settlement between Kosovo and Serbia,
it recast the deal as US geopolitical power projection.
And even if most of it comes to little or nothing, as many now expect, this will be a minor detail
for down the road when few in the US will be aware or will even care.
In fact, it seems unlikely that even the US government expects much to be implemented.
But it hardly matters.
The Trump Administration will have been delighted at scoring another foreign policy victory
that gained national and international media coverage.
Meanwhile, Serbia and Kosovo have little obvious to show, besides complicating their relations with most
of their other key partners around the world and piling a further recognition problem
on top of their own ongoing difficulties.
I hope you found that interesting.
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