Word: kosovo
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...country and Zapatero's when Spain withdrew from Iraq in 2004, had been replaced by the more like-minded Obama. There was even talk that Spain would be a stop on the new American President's first European tour. And then Defense Minister Carme Chacón went to Kosovo...
...March 19, Chacón told Spanish soldiers at a base in Istok that they and the rest of Spain's more than 600 troops who have formed part of the NATO peacekeeping forces (KFOR) in Kosovo since 1999 had finished their work. Once Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia last year, Spain has been looking for a way out - in part because Spaniards don't recognize an independent Kosovo and also because they have their own separatist issues to deal with at home, in the form of Basque and Catalan nationalism. "The mission has been completed...
...clear to both Belgrade and Pristina that membership is a very real possibility for both—assuming, of course, that they fulfill all the requirements of membership in the near future. This would have major implications for regional stability: Serbia would be discouraged from trying to reclaim Kosovo by force because of the consequences such an action would have for its EU membership...
...Integrating Serbia and Kosovo into the EU can only remain a far-off prospect until Brussels finishes the accession processes of the more stable Balkan nations that are ready, or close to being ready, for membership. However, the bids of several countries in the region are becoming unnecessarily protracted, leading one to wonder whether the EU’s drive to incorporate the former Yugoslav states will ever be completed...
...Kosovo and Serbia are certainly not ready for EU membership right now and probably will not be for some time–-at least until Serbia agrees to at least a de facto recognition of Kosovo’s independence and Kosovo can govern itself without the assistance of NATO forces deployed there. Nevertheless, the EU can and should play its own role in shaping the politics of this region by showing Kosovo and Serbia that it intends to extend EU membership to both of them when they are ready. This is the only way to permanently bring stability...