Word: kosovo
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Dressed in a grey pinstripe suit and burgundy tie, Hashim Thaci smiles and rolls his eyes as the power blinks out again in his office in downtown Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. "Some government," he groans. Following elections on Nov. 17, the former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, is expected to be sworn in soon as Kosovo's Prime Minister. If he and other Kosovo Albanian leaders declare independence from Serbia by early next year, as is widely expected, Thaci will become the Prime Minister of a newly sovereign state. The former guerrilla leader dismisses fears that...
...Nationalism is on the rise again in Serbia due to the imminent secession of Kosovo, the mostly ethnic-Albanian province which is seeking independence from Serbia with the backing of the West, while Belgrade - backed by Moscow - remains fiercely opposed. Following the footsteps of Milosevic, Seselj is also expected to use the courtroom as a platform for further hate speech, thus advancing the electoral prospects of his deputy Tomislav Nikolic, who is running for president in Serbia's January elections. Nikolic, the caretaker of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party in Seselj's absence, is running neck-and-neck with incumbent...
...telecommunication regulatory framework, including the possible break-up of large former government monopoly companies, is pending. On the foreign policy front, a drive led by France to impose tough economic sanctions on Iran has met resistance among other member states. And the question of how to deal with Kosovo, especially if it declares independence later this year, could cause a split in the E.U. as painful as the one over the war in Iraq...
Behind all such calculations loom concerns over how Serbia and Russia might react to Kosovo declaring independence. All politicians in Belgrade, including pro-Western ones, have publicly opposed full independence; Serbs in neighboring Bosnia have even threatened to split from Sarajevo in retaliation. Serb officials say war is not an option, but Belgrade could suspend diplomatic relations with the U.S. and other countries that recognize Kosovo. Losing Kosovo, a vital locus of Serbian national feeling, may also radicalize Serbian politics and push moderate nationalists like Kostunica away from the E.U. and into Russian hands. "Serbia should not seek the company...
...situation puts paid to long-cherished hopes that Kosovo could be guided toward independence and widely heralded as a new nation. Instead, U.S. backing for Kosovo's independence and Russian backing for Serbian unity is encouraging both sides to dig in their heels. This part of Europe has already, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, produced more than its share of history. In Kosovo, it appears doomed to keep doing...