Tensions in Kosovo are never-ending. The root of the problem is the refusal of the majority Serbian population in Kosovo to submit to the rule of the Kosovo state and government in the territory stretching from the north side of Mitrovica, divided by the Ibar river, towards Serbia. After NATO’s air campaign against Serbia in 1999, some of the Serbs living in Kosovo fled to the northern part of Mitrovica and settled there when the Serbian government withdrew in June. There was already a Serb-dominated population in that area. Some of the Serbs who fled from other areas feared that they might be next in line due to the previous policies of oppression and massacres against Albanians. Others fled out of fear of being attacked simply because they were Serbs. The UN Security Council-mandated administration in Kosovo (UNMIK) and KFOR, made up of NATO forces, including the United States, did not take effective action in time to prevent the region from becoming independent.
The civil society efforts to split Mitrovica, which has the richest mineral deposits in northern Kosovo, almost in two, with the river Ibar as the border, and to bring the area stretching north towards Serbia under the control of the Kosovo administration, predominantly Albanian, over time, did not yield much result. There have been frequent tensions between Serbs who want to establish a kind of ‘parallel’ administration there with the support of Serbia and Kosovan government forces trying to bring the region under Kosovo’s sovereignty. This time it started when Serbs in the region boycotted the general local elections in Kosovo. Serbs did that since they do not consider them part of Kosovo. In fact, they think that the whole of Kosovo is a province that was forcibly taken away from them and should belong to Serbia. On the other hand, it is very important for the Kosovo government not to create a ‘parallel’ administration in this region. After Serbia abolished Kosovo’s autonomy in the 1990s, contrary to the spirit of the Yugoslav constitution, and directly annexed the region to Belgrade, constituting ninety percent of the population, Albanians established a ‘parallel administration’, started to run their own affairs despite the difficulties, and boycotted all elections, especially in Serbia, on the grounds that Kosovo was not Serbia.
Former Yugoslavia: Six Founding Republics and Two Fully Autonomous Regions
Kosovo was not an ordinary province/state of Serbia, as it is portrayed in the Western media and occasionally in Turkey. After the withdrawal of the Nazi troops in 1944, learning from the experience of Royal Yugoslavia, Tito established a socialist federation based on six founding republics (Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia) and five nationalities (Serbs, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Croats and Slovenes). In this way, he thought he had solved the ethnic problems; however, the tensions that erupted in Kosovo in the 1950s due to the policies pursued by the Serbian interior minister and the problems that arose since the Bosnian identity was not recognized showed that this issue was not yet resolved.
As a result, Tito amended the constitution of Yugoslavia in 1974 as if it were being rewritten. In addition to the six founding republics, Kosovo, where Albanians constituted ninety percent, and Vojvodina in the north, where Hungarians constituted a strong minority (around 46%) were turned into fully autonomous regions and Bosnian national identity was recognized. There was little constitutional and administrative difference between the fully autonomous regions and the republics. For example, both regions had their own constitutions, their own parliaments, their own governments and their own internal administration (including police and judiciary). They also had the constitutional right to conclude and implement economic, commercial, educational, training and exchange agreements with other states, and the Kosovo administration, for example, exercised this right in 1975 and 1976 through agreements with the World Bank and the former East German Republic.
On the other hand, the constitution of Yugoslavia, while referring to the six republics and the two fully autonomous regions, counted them as ‘the six constitutional units that constitute Yugoslavia’, which implies that there are no hierarchical differences between them, and already in Yugoslavia’s main constitutional institutions (e.g. the Constitutional Court of Yugoslavia, the Presidential Council of Yugoslavia, whose importance increased after Tito’s death), the founding republics and the fully autonomous regions are on an equal footing. However, there was still the strange constitutional problem that republics theoretically had the right to declare independence, while fully autonomous regions did not. Indeed, in the events that erupted in Kosovo after Tito’s death, the people of Kosovo initially fought to become a founding republic. The problem became complicated following escalating tensions and clashes all over Yugoslavia; Kosovo’s autonomy was abolished by Milošević and his clique in 1989-1990 in violation of the constitution of Yugoslavia; and after increasing tensions and the forced closure of the Kosovo Parliament, the MPs were forced to declare an independent state called the Republic of Kosovo. The process of becoming an independent state, which seemed very difficult at the beginning, was followed by the disintegration of Yugoslavia in bloody conflicts and the massacres and genocides led by Milošević and his Bosnian cohorts Karadžić/Mladić, and the failure of Serbia to take steps to reduce tensions in Kosovo despite the Dayton Accords. For example, Serbia’s refusal to form a new and smaller Yugoslavia by transforming the Republic of Montenegro into a trilateral entity (Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro), and its insistence on creating an almost racist administration in Kosovo made things even more complicated and paved the way for the chain of events leading to NATO’s intervention. Meanwhile, the dissolution of Yugoslavia took place largely according to the constitution of the former Yugoslavia, with the exception of Vojvodina. Six republics became independent, while Kosovo, after Serbia was forced to withdraw from the region, gradually became independent in 2008, recognized by more than a hundred states, but not (yet) a member of the UN due to Russia’s veto.
Is a New Balkan War Imminent?
For these reasons, Albanians do not want to allow a ‘parallel’ administration to emerge north of Mitrovica. On the other hand, from time to time, Serbian governments, like the current Vucic administration, raise this issue as if they can take back Kosovo and then backtrack. Vucic himself did the same after the previous car license plate crisis and will probably backtrack after the municipal crisis subsides. The truth of the matter is that the return/return of Kosovo, whose population is more than ninety percent Albanian, to Serbian sovereignty would upset the status quo in the Balkans like a tectonic earthquake, but such a possibility is almost non-existent.
In a multipolar world, the media, which often perceives Serbia’s domestic political outbursts as Russia on one side and the West/NATO on the other, may think that Moscow is provoking the Belgrade authorities based on the criticism of NATO’s actions in the Balkans in the previous years; but such criticism does not mean open arms and ammunition aid, nor can it be interpreted as Russia encouraging Serbia to start a war. After all, Russia cannot provide military aid to Serbia these days, even if it wanted to, because the states surrounding the country blocked Lavrov’s official visit to Serbia last year by closing their airspace to the plane carrying the Russian foreign minister, let alone allowing aid to pass through. After that crisis over license plates was overcome, Vucic made statements that they did not intend to take steps together with Russia.
But would NATO drive the Albanians against Serbia? This is also very unlikely, because then, in any case, the Republika Srpska (Republica Srpska) that makes up Bosnia-Herzegovina might try to secede, Croatian forces and Croatia and Bosniaks might mobilize against the Serbs, and the fragmented structure in Bosnia-Herzegovina might be broken. On the other hand, if the Albanians become too strong, it could disturb Greece and even Macedonia, since Greece, acting as a natural ally of the Serbs, would not want the Albanians, who are natural allies of Turkey, to become stronger. If the Albanians, who make up more than a third of its population, gain power and ground, it would also make Macedonia vulnerable. In short, the scenario of NATO having Serbia beaten by the Albanians is not very plausible, if not impossible. It is also important to keep in mind that the US and the EU want to integrate Serbia into NATO and the EU rather than exclude it. In short, until Serbia recognizes Kosovo within its current borders, there will continue to be increasing and decreasing reports of tensions and street protests in the region, but the dynamics that would turn this into a chessboard between Russia and the West do not exist, at least for now. Turkey’s attempts to de-escalate crises are always appropriate, but it is important to be aware that there will be no definite results. In addition, it is absolutely beneficial to work intensively on alternative solutions even for partial results.
