Ahtisaari facing a large and difficult challenge

EDITORIAL

print this

The appointment of Martti Ahtisaari as an UN Special Envoy authorised by the United Nations and the great powers to lead the talks on the future status of Kosovo is another impressive demonstration of the authority and confidence the former President enjoys among the international community in such matters.
      Though Finland’s foreign policy profile has provided Ahtisaari with a reasonable springboard, ultimately it is his personal achievements and track record as a mediator that settled his nomination.
     
The list of demanding international tasks given to Ahtisaari is a long one. In a television interview last Saturday, he implied that the impending discussions on the status of Kosovo would be his last major assignment.
      Martti Ahtisaari is already recognised as the father-figure of Namibian independence in the 1980s, as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and the head of the UN Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG). The Kosovar Albanian majority hope, and actively expect, that the talks that are soon to begin will lead to the speedy independence of Kosovo. Serbia, to which Kosovo still officially belongs, also in the eyes of the UN, is under no circumstances willing to accept the province’s secession.
     
The resolution of the status of Kosovo is justly regarded as an extremely tough nut, but there is an urgent need for a political solution. The interim UN Mission and the presence of NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers in the province for more than six years have not significantly smoothed the way to bringing the two sides together. Hence there is a danger that extremist elements within the Kosovar Albanian community will seek to take matters into their own hands unilaterally.
      Ahtisaari’s task is not to broker peace, but to lead the discussions of the two parties. He will be guided and directed in the background by the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia. The U.S. and many others are looking towards a quick resolution with the ultimate goal being Kosovo’s independence.
      Russia, on the other hand, has traditionally stood in support of Belgrade and the Serbs, albeit that six years ago the former Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Viktor Chernomyrdin took part alongside Ahtisaari in forcing Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to a negotiated ceasefire agreement.
     
The six-nation Contact Group is said to be of one mind on three guiding principles to the discussions: Kosovo will not be returned under Serb sovereignty, it will not be partitioned, and nor will there be unification with either Albania or the Albanian population of Macedonia.
      Serbia naturally does not wish to surrender its claims of sovereignty over Kosovo, not to speak of the idea of Kosovo’s being granted independence. Belgrade is appealing to the principle ratified by the UN and the OSCE that the territorial borders of an existing state cannot be redrawn against the will of the state. Hence one central question will be how Serbia can be persuaded to accept such a negotiated settlement under peacetime conditions.
      Serbian surrender of Kosovo is certainly not made any easier by the fact that at the same time Montenegro is threatening to secede from the recently forged union with Serbia that was brokered through pressure from the EU.
     
The speedy independence of Kosovo is hardly likely to come to pass as a jointly-agreed solution around the negotiating table. And yet it is difficult to conceive of any other permanent resolution to the status of Kosovo except independence: it must be remembered that some 90% of the region’s population are Albanians, and that the numbers are increasing rapidly through the combination of a high birth-rate and the outward migration of the Serb minority.
      The specific mandate of the discussions is to “culminate in a political solution that will define Kosov’s final status”. It would, therefore, be hard to envisage for Kosovo, situated as it is in this multi-million inhabitant area in the vicinity of several small states, any other future but the path of independence.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 3.11.2005


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Kofi Annan appoints President Ahtisaari to lead Kosovo talks (2.11.2005)

Helsingin Sanomat