Bolton: Collapse of Kosovo talks – a massive failure of international diplomacy
Western inability to persuade Serbia and Kosovo Albanians to reach a negotiated and mutually acceptable solution for the future status of Kosovo has been a massive failure of international diplomacy, a former United States ambassador to the UN John Bolton said.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Monday, December 03, 2007
Bolton also said that the continued negotiations between two sides would be the ideal, but not very likely development of the two-years-long process overlooked by the international community and aimed at defining Kosovo's future status.
The former U.S. ambassador harshly criticized the Bush administration for undermining the negotiations by encouraging Kosovo Albanians to sit back and basically hang around and wait for talks to finish and later declare independence on their own.
"I would prefer no threats and deadlines...This way, outsiders will resolve the problem which could lead to dangerous developments", said Bolton. "The Bush administration's policy towards Kosovo was essentially the expansion of anti-Milosevic policy".
However, Bolton said that the UN Security Council would be the next political battlefield in a process designed to end up with clear solution to the Kosovo problem, as ambassadors of 15 nations prepare for the December 19 closed meeting on Contact Group Troika's report on the final, four-months-long negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina.
In addition, the former U.S. ambassador warned to possible serious breaks in relations between Belgrade and Washington, which could result from the U.S.'s possible decision to recognize Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence.
"The deployment of future EU missions to the province might also turn out to be a problematic development, but speculations that the UN Secretary General might invite Europeans to take over Kosovo administration seems as a highly unlikely advance...He simply has no legal backing for such a move, " Bolton said.
"Nonetheless, the EU can deploy missions without the Security Council's mandate...But the fate of UNMIK remains unclear, and that seems to be a clear sign that such a situation has never been a subject of discussions in top diplomatic forums", Bolton said.
