Commenting on the continuing negotiations in Kosovo, IWP Executive Vice President Frank Orban says on the Voice of America’s global TV program that an imposed solution will only invite more problems.
Orban is a former senior diplomat who, under President Ronald Reagan, went head-to-head against Soviet nuclear missile negotiators and won.
“American sympathy for Serbian view is tempered by Serbia’s failure to turn over General Mladic to the Hague War Crimes Tribunal,” he said in a summary of his remarks.
Belgrade has also failed to state its case in the United States, he said: “Unlike the Albanians who have hired skilled Washington lobbyist to press the Kosovar cause, the Serbian Government has failed to do so.”
“Although the official US position is that the US neither disfavors nor favors either of the potential negotiating outcomes – that is to say, ‘a high degree of autonomy within Serbia’ or ‘independence,’ deep in the State Department’s heart, they believe the right outcome is long-term independence conditional on meeting various milestones, a continued foreign military presence and likely a foreign High Commissioner to oversee Kosovo pending reaching full independence,” Orban said.
“Since ‘compromise’ is not a word that is at the top of the vocabulary list in Balkan languages, it is always possible that the talks could stalemate.
“If that occurs,” Orban added, “I personally do not feel that a solution would be imposed from outside – if the current carrots and sticks don’t produce a result – since I think enough international leaders recognize that an imposed solution in the Balkans is not a solution but an invitation for more problems.”