By itself, the proposed Resolution of three American congressmen on support for Kosovo’s membership in NATO means little. It is essentially just an expression of the opinion of the House of Representatives. The question is how many additional congressmen will sign up as co-sponsors and whether they will go through the Foreign Affairs Committee – Jim Dzatras, an American political analyst, former diplomat and foreign policy advisor, lobbyist for the “Vanable” company, told Danas.
However, the appearance of this document a few weeks after the decision of the Assembly of Kosovo to approve the sending of members of the Kosovo Security Forces to Gaza, whose patrons in Washington do not yet know whether they will be in reconnaissance or work to eliminate Hamas, as well as Kosovo’s membership in the Peace Committee of US President Donald Trump, raises more questions. Essentially – that it is a prelude to the diplomatic isolation announced in mid-March by Edward P-Joseph, an expert on the Balkans and a former senior official of the Organization for European Security and Cooperation mission in Pristina, or a new pressure on official Belgrade to join NATO, which is the main drama of Serbian-American relations.
One of the dilemmas is whether Pristina’s unconditional cooperation with Washington can be matched by the authorities in the rest of Serbia with arrangements with Israel, recently raised to the level of “strategic partnership”, including the weapons that Belgrade sends to Ukraine? What should have been Belgrade’s response to actions in the US Congress, which violate Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council?
– It is probably not a complete coincidence that the resolution appeared after Pristina’s decision to send KBS members to Gaza and Kosovo’s membership in Trump’s peace committee. The Pristina regime and their friends in Washington could see in this a small opportunity to give Trump a desperately needed “victory” somewhere – anywhere – in light of the disaster he caused in the war with Iran and the continuation of the war in Ukraine – believes Jim Jatras.
He estimates that official Belgrade, by trading arms with Israel and sending weapons to Ukraine, “cannot compete with Pristina in the fight for Washington’s support, whether it is a Republican or Democratic administration.”
– Regardless of which party holds the majority in Congress, the US establishment is determined to maintain America’s pursuit of global hegemony, including dominance of Europe through NATO and its concubine, the European Union. While Belgrade can try to achieve small occasional gains, in the “bigger picture” Serbia will always be an assumed opponent, like Russia and China, which are featured prominently in this resolution, unless there is a complete surrender of sovereignty to Washington. That is why pressures on Belgrade are a constant in American policy. This resolution is just a new pressure point pushing in the same direction: Serbia must be forced to submit. The good news for Serbia is that, with the situations in Iran and Ukraine, Washington’s ability to impose its will is visibly weakened. NATO is increasingly divided while the “Eurasian bloc” is getting stronger – states Jim Jatras.
Political analyst Dušan Janić also shares the view that the resolution on the accelerated membership of Kosovo in NATO is a new pressure on Belgrade due to its entry into the Western Alliance, but he sees the outcome as longer.
– The resolution of the American congressmen is based on the official decisions of Pristina about sending the KBS to Gaza and membership in the Peace Committee, the statements of Vjosa Osmani when she was the president of Kosovo about Kosovo’s NATO future. Serbia is not expected to go that way, the weakness of the government and the possibility of trade will be exploited. It is possible that they will probably go for a settlement like with Milorad Dodik, who agreed that the Republika Srpska does not prevent BiH’s membership in NATO. But the main goal of Washington is still Serbia in NATO – explains Dušan Janjić for our newspaper.
He believes that “the resolution in the American Congress is a preparation for the opening of the process of Kosovo’s entry into NATO, because NATO is a creation by whose standards it was built.”
– Official Belgrade will probably pretend to regret it, because negotiations on the survival or transfer of power in Serbia are ongoing, and one of the conditions is to join NATO. In the case of Serbia, only a statement is sufficient, and that within the framework of cooperation with the USA, which would refer to Euro-Atlantic affairs. That’s how Albania joined NATO. For that statement, Vučić will probably delegate someone like Ana Brnabić or, even better, Marko Đurić. It is clear that we are no longer talking about Kosovo and Serbia together in the EU, but in NATO. After the statements of Marta Kos about the rapprochement of the position of the five countries that did not recognize Kosovo, it is clear that Lavrov is not calling out the EU for nothing for pushing Serbia against Russia, because he cannot directly call out the USA because of trade around Ukraine – notes Dušan Janjić.
He estimates that Serbia’s military cooperation with Israel “doesn’t mean anything in relations with Washington, because the big Jewish lobby that came to Israel with a lot of money from Russia is represented there more than the USA.”
– A few years ago, the USA suspended its armed support to Israel, which produces its own weapons and equipment, and some local arms dealers got involved, but that has nothing to do with Vučić. Israel, where dedicated production and trade is run only by military personnel and counterintelligence services, has become an investor for the expansion of dedicated production primarily in Bulgaria, Romania and the area of the former SFR Yugoslavia, but this cooperation with Belgrade does not help relations with the USA, especially since Vučić did not fulfill the provisions of the Washington Agreement on moving the embassy to Jerusalem – explains Dušan Janjić.
Dejan Mirović: Initiation of Vučić’s criminal responsibility
Professor Dejan Mirović from the Faculty of Law of the University of Pristina, with its seat temporarily moved to Kosovska Mitrovica, indicates that the document of the American congressmen “is an absolute violation of Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council, which states that the Republic of Kosovo is within the sovereignty of the State of Serbia as far as international relations are concerned, while the internal arrangement of Kosovo and Kosovo is the subject of discussion.” “The resolution of the American congressmen relies on Article 4 of the Franco-German agreement, which Aleksandar Vučić accepted. It states, among other things, that Serbia will not oppose Kosovo’s membership in any international organization.”
Things have gone too far and at this point Vučić would have to first prosecute himself under Serbian criminal law, and then fight against the violation of Resolution 1244. If that is not the case, let him explain why Kosovo did not become an observer in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly only after the implementation of the Franco-German plan. It is clear that it is about the implementation of this document, which is why official Belgrade is silent on sending members of the KBS to Gaza and on Kosovo’s membership in Trump’s Peace Committee. Now the first step should be to bring Vučić’s criminal responsibility for accepting the Franco-German plan and for him to be tried in Serbia in order to admit why he accepted this document – whether it was for career or material benefit, which is possible based on the Criminal Code of Serbia,” Dejan Mirović believes.
Lobbyists and diaspora
– In the tradition of political activity of the entire Albanian diaspora in the USA, especially the Kosovar Albanians, is to understand the power of the Congress, which they have been using since the seventies of the 20th century. Kosovo Albanian lobbyists are very active, although they are opposed by a strengthened Serbian lobby in Congress. Their demands boil down to the US policy of full recognition of Kosovo, but this resolution pragmatically does not prejudge it, rather the pressure is transferred to NATO to accept Kosovo, even though it is not fully a state. The Serbian diaspora, unlike the authorities in Belgrade, realized that the full recognition of Kosovo now comes down to EU criteria for recognizing new states. Kosovo only lacks membership in the Council of Europe, but the problem there is the unresolved issue of the Serbian community. That is why the Serbian diaspora in America is under pressure to at least engage the SPC in the USA in solving the status of the Serbian community and the SPC in Kosovo – says Dušan Janjić.
Politics on autopilot
When asked how strong the Albanian lobby is in the US Congress after the recent death of Congressman Eliot Engels, Jim Dzatras replies that “Engels’s departure did not bring about a big change, because it is a constant in American politics – support for a fake puppet state.” According to Djaras, the resolution on Kosovo’s membership in NATO, as well as the announcements that Albania could be the first in the region to receive a new American ambassador, “say that the US policy remains on autopilot and will remain so until the aspiration towards global domination, whose perspective is increasingly predictable, collapses.”
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