The Wall Street Journal: Redrawing Kosovo’s border risks opening Pandora’s box

Tirana, 7 November 2011 (MIA) - For years, Europe and the U.S. have been reluctant to consider redrawing Balkan borders, fearing that such a policy may trigger more ethnic confusion and bloodshed in this war-torn region and shake global political stability, the Wall Street Journal reads.

But the current dispute between Kosovo’s Serbs and Albanians, which have been at loggerheads since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 following the war in the late 1990s, seems to have helped mellow international resistance to the idea.

One of the first Westerners to flag the disputed border-change concept was Erhard Busek, the former coordinator of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, who this autumn said a partition of Kosovo may be a viable solution to solve the Kosovo standoff.

Following up on Busek is U.S congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who is proposing a land swap between Albanians and Serbs, basing his argument on the right for self-determination for both ethnic groups.

“One option that would be consistent with the right to self-determination and that would bolster long-term stability would be for an honorable transfer between Serbia and Kosovo of roughly equal pieces of territory and population,” Mr. Rohrabacher wrote in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.

According to his proposal Kosovo’s ethnic Serbs could join Serbia if they want, while Albanians in Serbia’s southern Presevo valley could seek a tie-up with Kosovo should they vote so. Both ethnic groups, who have pressed for long to join their respective homelands, would most likely back such a step in a potential referendum.

But while floating such ideas may indicate that a broader international policy change may be under way, redrawing Kosovo’s border risks opening the Balkan’s Pandora’s box, as it could provoke fresh calls for land swaps and border changes elsewhere in the region.

For exactly this reason, Kosovo’s prime minister Hashim Thaci told Swiss media this week that there will “be neither a border change nor land swap” in Kosovo. In the same interview he also refuted the idea that Kosovo’s Serbs should be granted a special status or autonomy.