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Special Report 172 August 2006

United States Institute of Peace

Special Report

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily 

reflect the views of the United States Institute of Peace, 

which does not advocate specific policy positions.

Contents 

Introduction 2

The International Community 3

Kosovo Albanians and Their Institutions 4

Serbia and Kosovo Serbs 5

Implications for the Region 6

Conclusion 7

About the Report

Negotiations between Pristina and Belgrade on the future 

status of Kosovo under the auspices of UN Special Envoy 

Martti Ahtisaari are expected to produce a settlement, 

one way or another, by the end of the year or early in 

2007. The talks have focused so far on “technical” issues 

such as decentralization, the economy, and cultural 

heritage. Pristina and Belgrade have shown few signs of 

compromise, making a negotiated outcome less likely. This 

report seeks to analyze current conditions on the ground 

in Kosovo that could lead to partition, with disastrous 

implications for the region. 

Daniel Serwer is vice president of the Center for Peace and 

Stability Operations and Yll Bajraktari is a senior program 

assistant at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Daniel Serwer and Yll Bajraktari 

Summary

•	 The international community’s military and financial investments in the Balkans over 

the past fifteen years have led to substantial improvements in most of the territories 

of the former Yugoslavia. 

•	 This progress will be put at risk if talks on Kosovo’s status lead to de facto ethnoterritorial separation, with Serbs governed on their own territory by Belgrade without 

reference to Pristina. Partition, or something approaching it, could trigger another 

wave of violence, mass displacement of civilians, and instability in multiethnic states 

of the region.

Kosovo

Ethnic Nationalism at Its Territorial Worst

Source: United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo
2

•	 The international community has failed so far to reintegrate Serbs into Kosovo. Freedom of movement is insufficient, Serbs returning to their homes in Albanian-majority 

areas are minimal, Kosovo’s governing institutions lack Serb representation, and Belgrade has tightened its grip on Serbs living in the north and in enclaves elsewhere. 

•	 Serbia aims to govern the Serbs of Kosovo directly from Belgrade on clearly defined 

territory and without reference to Pristina. This is precisely the kind of ethnoterritorial 

separation that will cause trouble throughout the region. 

•	 The Kosovo Albanian leadership has failed to improve the living conditions of Serbs 

living in Albanian-majority areas. Hardliners among Kosovo Albanians would also 

like to see ethnoterritorial separation, as it would offer them a chance to expel 

the remaining Kosovo Serbs south of the Ibar River and rid themselves of a “Trojan 

horse.” 

•	 If the status talks lead to ethnoterritorial separation in Kosovo, serious instability 

could affect southern Serbia (Presevo Valley), western Macedonia, and Bosnia. 

Introduction

The international community has been involved in war and peace issues in the former 

Yugoslavia for the past fifteen years. This portion of the Balkans has drawn both military 

and financial support from the international community unmatched on a per capita basis 

by any other international intervention in recent history. 

The result has been a qualified and partial success: the wars that plagued the region 

in the 1990s, aimed at creating ethnically pure states, have ended. Today, the situation 

by and large is improving. Slovenia, the first republic to break away from Yugoslavia, is 

already a member of the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO). Croatia, after enabling the arrest and transfer of indicted General Ante Gotovina 

to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, is opening 

talks on EU accession. 

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, political leaders have embarked on their first effort at 

reforming the Dayton Accords in a way that would make their government more functional 

and compatible with requirements set by the EU, which has formally opened talks for a 

stabilization and association agreement. Even once recalcitrant Bosnian Serbs have come 

to understand that they can better leverage their political influence by cooperating than 

by undermining state institutions. They are choosing a major role in Sarajevo over a bit 

part in Belgrade. 

Macedonia, after a relatively small-scale conflict in 2001 between Albanians and 

Macedonians, is moving closer to joining the EU. The Ohrid Framework Agreement, which 

brought peace, has benefited Macedonia’s Albanians, who increasingly accept their role 

inside Macedonia and reject romantic notions of Greater Kosovo or Greater Albania. It also 

reestablished the legitmacy of the Macedonian state. In December 2005, Macedonia was 

granted candidate status and is now awaiting a date for accession talks to begin. Recent 

election troubles notwithstanding, Albanians in Macedonia have a strong incentive to 

work within the Macedonian political framework: they could become the first Albanians in 

the region to claim EU citizenship. 

In April 2005, the European Commission adopted a feasibility study that concluded 

Serbia was ready to negotiate a stabilization and association agreement, provided it 

cooperates in the arrest of indicted war criminal Radko Mladic, which has not yet taken 

place. Montenegro’s successful independence referendum, conducted on May 21, 2006, 

means that Serbia will negotiate with the EU separately from Montenegro. But Montenegrin independence entailed no risk of war, as secessions of former Yugoslav republics did 

in the 1990s. Montenegro is an explicitly nonethnic state, one in which several minorities 

About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan federal institution created 

by Congress to promote the prevention, management, and peaceful resolution of international 

conflicts. Established in 1984, the Institute meets 

its congressional mandate through an array of 

programs, including research grants, fellowships, 

professional training, education programs from high 

school through graduate school, conferences and 

workshops, library services, and publications. The 

Institute’s Board of Directors is appointed by the 

President of the United States and confirmed 

by the Senate.

Board of Directors

J. Robinson West (Chair), Chairman, PFC Energy, Washington, D.C. • María Otero (Vice Chair), President, ACCION 

International, Boston, Mass. • Betty F. Bumpers, Founder 

and former President, Peace Links, Washington, D.C. • 

Holly J. Burkhalter, Director of U.S. Policy, Physicians 

for Human Rights, Washington, D.C. • Chester A. 

Crocker, James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic 

Studies, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University • 

Laurie S. Fulton, Partner, Williams and Connolly, 

Washington, D.C. • Charles Horner, Senior Fellow, Hudson 

Institute, Washington, D.C. • Seymour Martin Lipset, 

Hazel Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University • 

Mora L. McLean, President, Africa-America Institute, 

New York, N.Y. • Barbara W. Snelling, former State 

Senator and former Lieutenant Governor, Shelburne, Vt.

Members ex officio

Barry F. Lowenkron, Assistant Secretary of State for 

Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor • Peter W. Rodman,

Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security 

Affairs • Richard H. Solomon, President, United States 

Institute of Peace (nonvoting), • Frances C. Wilson,

Lieutenant General, U.S. Marine Corps; President, 

National Defense University 
3

supported independence. There is no appetite in either Podgorica or Belgrade for use of 

the military despite passionate feelings among some of their citizens. 

The question of Kosovo’s future political status remains the only unresolved Balkan 

issue that could reverse progress made in the past decade. While partition solutions have 

been more or less avoided in the rest of the Balkans, in Kosovo ethnoterritorial division 

is a likely outcome, whether negotiated or by force. The Contact Group (consisting of the 

United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, France, Italy, and the EU) made it 

clear in its guiding principles for the status talks that Kosovo will not be partitioned,1

but did not specify how to avoid partition. Should ethnoterritorial separation in Kosovo 

be formalized, the implications for the region could be immense. It could unravel the 

regional fabric and vitiate an enormous investment in maintaining multiethnic states, 

avoiding redrawing borders to accommodate ethnic differences, and preventing mass 

displacement of civilians. 

This paper will consider the prospects for avoiding ethnoterritorial separation and 

possible partition in Kosovo. It will analyze the main actors and their preferences, including the international community, the Kosovo Albanians, and finally Serbia and Kosovo 

Serbs. 

The International Community

UN Security Council Resolution 1244, adopted in June 1999, ended the NATOYugoslavia war and provided for the deployment of NATO military forces in Kosovo (KFOR) 

and a UN civilian interim administrative mission (UNMIK), headed by a special representative of the Secretary General. The mandate of the mission was to “establish an international civil presence in Kosovo in order to provide an interim administration for Kosovo 

under which the people of Kosovo can enjoy substantial autonomy within the Federal 

Republic of Yugoslavia, and which will provide transitional administration while establishing and overseeing the development of provisional democratic self-governing institutions 

to ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants of Kosovo.”2 The 

Security Council gave UNMIK full executive power in, and NATO military control of, the 

entire territory of Kosovo. 

Although legally in charge of the entire territory, UNMIK has proven incapable of 

ending Belgrade’s de facto control of three and a half northern municipalities in Kosovo, 

which are contiguous with Serbia proper, as well as several Serb enclaves in central and 

eastern Kosovo. This inability to control all of Kosovo’s territory has led to the creation 

of a dual system in almost every aspect of political and economic life in Kosovo. In the 

areas it controls, Belgrade dictates the school curricula, runs the health care system, and 

applies laws passed in Serbia. This situation has reinforced the already sharp division 

between the Serbian and Albanian communities in Kosovo, which today continue to live 

separate lives within close proximity, arguably even more separate than before 1999. 

Ethnoterritorial separation in Kosovo is already a fact, one that would require considerable effort to change. 

UNMIK did attempt to create multiethnic, inclusive institutions of governance at both 

the local and central levels by organizing four elections in Kosovo: local elections in 2000 

and 2002 and central elections in 2001 and 2004.3 These elections, which were considered free and fair by international observers, provided Kosovo with an elected assembly 

and provisional institutions of self-government. However, although Kosovo Serbs took 

part in the municipal and first central elections, they largely boycotted the 2004 central 

elections despite intense international pressure. With most of Belgrade’s institutions calling for a boycott,4 only a tiny percentage of the Kosovo Serbs went to the polls to elect 

representatives in the Kosovo Assembly, in which they are guaranteed ten seats. This left 

Kosovo Serbs with no significant representation in Pristina’s political life and created a 

The question of Kosovo’s future 

political status remains the 

only unresolved Balkan issue 

that could reverse progress 

made in the past decade.

Although legally in charge of 

the entire territory, UNMIK 

has proven incapable of ending Belgrade’s de facto control 

of three and a half northern 

municipalities in Kosovo, as 

well as several Serb enclaves in 

central and eastern Kosovo.
4

“leopard-skin” political map of Kosovo, where Albanian-dominated areas are controlled by 

elected leaders and Serb areas by Belgrade’s handpicked representatives.

The international community in Kosovo has also failed to create conditions where all 

ethnicities enjoy freedom of movement. Despite initially deploying more then 40,000 

soldiers and close to 3,000 international policemen, UNMIK and KFOR allowed ethnic 

nationalists on both sides to hinder movement across the areas they controlled. While 

conditions have improved markedly since 1999, UNMIK has continued to allow Belgrade 

to require that Kosovo Serbs use Serbian license plates, both to circulate within Serbcontrolled areas of Kosovo and to enter Serbia proper.5 This ensures that Serbs enter 

Albanian-controlled areas as infrequently as possible (for fear of being targeted) and 

ensures that Albanians, who use UN-issued license plates, are readily identifiable when 

they enter Serb-controlled areas. It also makes it difficult for Albanians to enter Serbia, 

since UN plates are not accepted there. The freedom of movement achieved so quickly 

and easily in Bosnia—where the international community insisted on ethnically neutral 

license plates—has never been established in Kosovo. 

Part of the reason for the international community’s failure to ensure reintegration 

in Kosovo has been the diminishing focus on the Balkans in general. Engaged in many 

new crises, from Afghanistan to Iraq, and recently Sudan, the international community—

especially the Contact Group countries—has been reluctant to focus energy and time on 

yesterday’s problems. Preoccupied with the global war on terror since 2001, the United 

States shifted its focus away from the Balkans to areas more vital to its national interests. 

The EU, faced with enlargement fatigue and constitutional problems,6 also lacks the focus 

and energy to concentrate once again on the troublesome Balkans. Once Milosevic was 

in The Hague and replaced by a political leadership reluctant to use force, the Balkans 

seemed safely past the wars of the 1990s. 

The March 2004 riots demonstrated the volatility of the situation in Kosovo, raising 

the specter of renewed ethnic violence on a larger scale. The rioting triggered an effort to 

accelerate Kosovo’s move toward fulfilling international standards and led in the spring of 

2005 to an international consensus to deal with final status issues. Violence once again 

drew the attention of the international community to the region. 

In setting out the preconditions for talks on Kosovo’s final status, the Contact Group 

has stated that it will allow neither partition nor union with neighboring Albanianpopulated territories to be discussed. It is not clear, however, what the Contact Group 

is prepared to do to prevent these outcomes, or what it is prepared to do to reverse the 

existing ethnoterritorial separation in Kosovo. It has, however, encouraged discussion of 

“decentralization,” which in practice could allow separate governance of Serb communities on their own clearly defined territory. 

Kosovo Albanians and Their Institutions

The Kosovo Albanian political leadership, while claiming to want reintegration of Serbs, 

has consistently failed to do what is necessary to achieve this goal. In June of 1999, 

as NATO forces entered Kosovo, followed immediately by Albanian refugees, Serbs were 

leaving for fear of revenge or because of violence against them and their religious sites. 

The Kosovo Liberation Army, which took control of many municipalities south of the Ibar 

River, made no secret of its desire to see the Serbs leave. The Kosovo Albanian leadership, scattered between Pristina and refugee camps, failed then and since to counteract 

acts of violence and crimes committed against Serbs remaining in Kosovo. Even with the 

election of the first Kosovo government in 2001, Kosovo Albanians failed to appreciate 

the need to welcome Serbs back to their homes. In March 2004, when violence escalated 

in Kosovo, the Albanian leadership was in disarray, with some trying to benefit politically 

from the violence.7 

The failure of Kosovo Albanian political leaders to offer a pragmatic plan for reintegration of Serbs into Kosovo and its new institutions is a major factor in the current 

The March 2004 riots demonstrated 

the volatility of the situation in 

Kosovo, raising the specter of renewed 

ethnic violence on a larger scale.

The failure of Kosovo Albanian political 

leaders to offer a pragmatic plan for 

reintegration of Serbs into Kosovo and 

its new institutions is a major factor in 

the current situation. 
5

situation. Pristina has done next to nothing to guarantee that Serbs can use their own 

language, worship freely, and preserve their cultural and religious sites. This has driven 

the Kosovo Serbs into the arms of Belgrade, encouraged them to create separate institutions, and further marginalized them politically. In the past seven years, only one Kosovo 

prime minister has sought even to visit northern Kosovo. He was not welcomed warmly.8 

It was only the introduction of the “standards before status” policy by the international 

community in 2003 that compelled the Kosovo Albanian leadership to engage more 

actively in saying it wanted to integrate the Kosovo Serb population.9 The current prime 

minister, Agim Ceku, is sincere in his desire to see Serbs reintegrated, but his government 

has done little so far to make that process safe and attractive. 

Radical elements in Kosovo Albanian society would like to see Kosovo partitioned in 

order to ensure its ethnic purity. They believe that integrating Serbs largely controlled 

by Belgrade could block further development or serve as a Trojan horse, compromising 

Kosovo’s independence in the future. The extremists also view partition as an opportunity to seek return of the Presevo Valley (in southern Serbia), which was once part of 

Kosovo,10 or compensation in western Macedonia, predominantly populated by ethnic 

Albanians. Moreover, extreme nationalists view partition at the Ibar as justification to 

expel the remaining Kosovo Serb population scattered south of the river, where two-thirds 

of Kosovo’s remaining Serbs live.11 Only the promise of final status negotiations has put 

extremist efforts on hold. 

Serbia and Kosovo Serbs

Since the end of the NATO-Yugoslavia war, Serbia—whether under Milosevic or Prime 

Minister Vojislav Kostunica—has tried to ensure that its motto, “Only Unity Saves the 

Serbs,” is more than a slogan. Belgrade seeks to monopolize representation of the Kosovo 

Serbs, serving as their sole voice and self-appointed protector. While Belgrade officially 

supports the Contact Group’s no-partition policy, it is well aware that the Contact Group 

seems to lack the political will to back rhetoric with action. 

In Belgrade’s view, protection for Kosovo Serbs must be ensured by Serbian institutions 

on clearly defined territory. These parallel institutions already exist in Kosovo Serb communities of any size, financed with tens of millions of euros.12 Serbian security services 

have been operating in Kosovo since 1999; in the north they operate openly. Linking 

Serb communities horizontally and connecting them vertically to Belgrade, Serbia seeks a 

Serb “entity” (analogous to Republika Srpska in Bosnia) within Kosovo that it can control 

independently of Pristina. Even moderate Serbian politicians, such as President Boris 

Tadic, support a Serb entity in Kosovo.13 

Since “partition” is a prohibited word, Belgrade uses the internationally approved term 

“decentralization” as the code word for its planned ethnoterritorial separation in Kosovo. 

Serbia’s decentralization plan envisions the creation of ethnically pure municipalities that 

would welcome Serbs displaced from all over Kosovo.14 These communities are already 

connected to the rest of the world through the Serbian telephone system rather than 

the Kosovo system. Sandra Ilic-Raskovic, Serbia’s coordinator for Kosovo, has called on 

Kosovo Serbs to give up salaries received from Kosovo institutions and remain exclusively 

on Serbia’s payroll.15 

In northern Kosovo, since the election of Kostunica, Serbia operates through its surrogates, most notably the Serbian National Council (SNC). In central Kosovo, there are 

moderate Kosovo Serb voices that would like to participate in Kosovo institutions, but 

they are threatened physically16 or depicted as traitors by Belgrade. Moreover, Belgrade 

discourages Kosovo Serbs from thinking about their future within Kosovo if it becomes 

independent. Marko Jaksic of the SNC, a leading Kosovo Serb nationalist, recently stated, 

“We said that Kosovo independence and the survival of the Serbian community are two 

completely opposite realities; the two ideas are incompatible.”17 Such statements are a 

Since “partition” is a prohibited word, 

Belgrade uses the internationally 

approved term “decentralization” as 

the code word for its planned ethnoterritorial separation in Kosovo.
6

clear signal to Serbs living south of the Ibar that they should leave for the north if Kosovo 

becomes independent. 

Implications for the Region 

It is not hard to imagine scenarios in which the ethnoterritorial separation Belgrade seeks, 

Pristina resists, and the international community has ruled out (in the extreme form of 

partition) become a reality. If negotiations fail, both Serb and Albanian extremists will 

seek their preferred outcome—ethnoterritorial separation—by violent means, ethnically 

cleansing areas north and south of the Ibar of their Albanian and Serbian minorities, 

respectively. Successful negotiations, if they accept the Serb definition of “decentralization,” will provide Serbs with the separate governance on clearly defined territory that 

they seek.

It should be clear that whatever Serbs get in the settlement will set a potentially 

destabilizing standard for what Albanians in southern Serbia and in Macedonia will seek. 

If Serbs get an entity—either in name or in fact—Albanians in Macedonia will seek the 

same thing, with links to Pristina, which is a good deal more than they got in the Ohrid 

Framework Agreement and more than the Macedonian majority would be prepared to provide. Likewise, Presevo Albanians—to whom Serbia has offered nothing approaching what 

it is seeking for the Kosovo Serbs—would abandon their relatively moderate demands 

in favor of an Albanian “entity” governed separately from the rest of Serbia and linked 

directly to Pristina. 

It is also worthwhile to ask why ethnoterritorial separation should be necessary in a 

region where protection of individual and group rights according to European standards is 

the declared goal of all. It is of course true that both Kosovo Serbs and Albanians have 

reasons to doubt the goodwill of the other. But with the freedom of movement that comes 

with EU membership—and even before that with entry into the Schengen area—it will be 

impossible to keep Albanians and Serbs separate in Kosovo for long. The real question is 

not how they can be kept apart but how they can live together. 

That is not a trivial question anywhere in the Balkans, although the relatively benign 

evolution of affairs in Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia, as well as in Serbia proper, suggests it can be done. A common language, however, is a prerequisite (one met in all these 

countries—even Macedonia—but not in Kosovo). Discussion of language issues in Kosovo 

focuses almost entirely on protection of the right to speak Serbian or Albanian, or, more 

accurately, attacks on the right of the others to use their own language, whether in parliament or on street signs. There is virtually no discussion of the need for a common language 

in which to conduct everyday business. Until this problem is solved, it will be difficult to 

reintegrate Serbs into Kosovo. 

There is only one feasible solution: English. No young Albanian would want to learn 

Serbian, and no young Serb would want to learn Albanian, in preference to learning 

English. This they have in common. It is time to recognize that reintegration of Serbs in 

Kosovo—whatever its future status—will require easy availability of education in English 

for both Serbs and Albanians. Given the enormous economic advantages that accrue to 

anyone in the Balkans who is fluent in English, it would not be difficult to integrate 

schools in Kosovo if they were available—not required—in English. 

Is reintegration, even with a common language, possible? This is an especially important question for Mitrovica, the northern Kosovo city still divided between the Albaniancontrolled section south of the Ibar River and the Serb-controlled territory north of the 

Ibar. It remains to be seen, but experience elsewhere in the Balkans suggests that with 

sufficient international political will and modest resources a remarkable degree of reintegration can be achieved, even after bitter fighting. Eastern Slavonia (as well as other 

previously Serb-controlled areas) was reintegrated into Croatia by a UN mission with a 

clear mandate and vigorous leadership. The northeastern town of Brcko, which sits in the

If negotiations fail, both Serb 

and Albanian extremists will 

seek their preferred outcome—

ethnoterritorial separation—by 

violent means.

There is virtually no discussion of 

the need for a common language

 in which to conduct everyday 

business. Until this problem is 

solved, it will be difficult to 

reintegrate Serbs into Kosovo.
7

most contested corridor of the Bosnian war, has been reintegrated under U.S. leadership, 

despite an initially uncertain status that was resolved only after reintegration was well 

under way. In contrast, the southern Bosnian town of Mostar remains largely divided 

despite enormous financial investments by the EU, largely due to lack of international 

and local political will. Clarity of purpose and unity of effort will be far more important 

than finances in determining the outcome of Mitrovica. 

Conclusion

The question of Kosovo’s status is gradually boiling down to the question of the status of 

the Kosovo Serbs, and the degree of their integration into the rest of Kosovo. Or, to put it 

another way, the question of Kosovo’s status is not whether it will be independent or not, 

but whether it will be sovereign and, if so, over what territory. 

Kosovo is already independent in the sense that the Albanian-populated areas govern 

themselves, within limits imposed by the UN Security Council, independently of Belgrade. 

No one in Belgrade has put forward a plan to govern the Albanians, and no one any longer imagines—as Milosevic did—that they can chase the Albanians from Kosovo. But if 

decentralization allows separate governance of the Serbs within Kosovo, without reference 

to Pristina, Kosovo will not be sovereign over the territory occupied by Serbs. It should 

be no surprise then that some in Belgrade and in West European capitals imagine that 

Kosovo can be given independence but not a seat at the UN, where all sovereign states 

rightfully sit. 

This kind of ambiguous solution is a formula for failure and violence. Seven years after 

NATO’s intervention, the future of Kosovo and most of the rest of the former Yugoslavia 

is once again at stake. With talks on the future status of Kosovo already initiated, the 

implications of ethnoterritorial separation inside Kosovo need to be understood: calling 

it decentralization does not change reality, and the reality of ethnoterritorial separation 

leads to instability and violence. The international community and the people of the 

Balkans have come too far over the past decade to end up in a scenario that would only 

satisfy extreme nationalists. The Balkans endgame can be a peaceful one, but only if ethnoterritorial separation is ruled out.

Notes

1. United Nations Office of the Special Envoy for Kosovo, “Guiding Principles of the Contact Group for a Settlement of the Status of Kosovo,” January 31, 2006, http://www.unosek.org.

2. United Nations, “United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244,” June 10, 1999, http://www.un.int/usa/

sres1244.htm.

3. Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, “OSCE Mission in Kosovo: Elections,” http://www.osce.

org/kosovo/13208.html.

4. United Nations Mission in Kosovo, Media Monitoring report, October 3, 2004, www.unmikonline.org/

press/2004/mon/oct/lmm031004.pdf.

5. Fonet News Agency, “Kosovo Serbs Say Car Number Plate Ruling Violates UN Resolution 1244,” April 9, 

2005.

6. Patrick Moore, “Balkans: Worries Over EU Enlargement,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, June 6, 2005, 

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/06/7cd6fc51-e3d9-4007-a147-129f39186d0f.html.

7. Human Rights Watch Report, “The Response of the Kosovar Leadership to the Violence,” July 2004, http://

hrw.org/reports/2004/kosovo0704/8.htm.

8. U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, “Human Rights Report on Kosovo 

- 2003,” http://pristina.usmission.gov/hrkos3.htm.

9. Ilir Deda, “Forging a Partnership for Change,” Focus Kosovo, December 2003, http://www.unmikonline.

org/pub/focuskos/dec03/focuskprist1.htm.

The question of Kosovo’s status 

is gradually boiling down to the 

question of the status of the 

Kosovo Serbs.
10. International Crisis Group, “Southern Serbia’s Fragile Peace,” December 9, 2003, http://www.crisisgroup.

org/home/index.cfm?id=2414&l=1.

11. European Stability Initiative, “The Lausanne Principle: Multiethnicity, Territory and the Future of Kosovo’s 

Serbs,” June 7, 2004, http://www.esiweb.org/index.php?lang=en&id=156&document_ID=53.

12. Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, “Parallel Structures in Kosovo,” October 2003, http://

www.osce.org/documents/mik/2003/10/698_en.pdf.

13. “Both Entities in Serbia,” Blic, November 17, 2005, http://www.kosovo.net/news/archive/2005/

November_18/2.html.

14. “Belgrade’s Platform Envisages Formation of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo,” Beta news agency, carried in 

Bilten Daily Survey, January 10, 2006, http://www.mfa.gov.yu/Bilteni/Engleski/b100106_e.html#N4.

15. “Coordination Center’s Position Counterproductive, Ahtisaari,” Tanjug news agency, carried in Bilten Daily 

Survey, March 31, 2006, http://www.mfa.gov.yu/Bilteni/Engleski/b310306_e.html#N11.

16. “Bomb Destroys Car of Moderate Kosovo Serb Leader,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, February 9, 2005, 

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/2/47856329-E265-4E95-8B61-D5CD27763939.html.

17. “Wisner to Meet with Serbian Officials,” B92, April 17, 2006, http://www.b92.net.

Of Related Interest

A number of other publications from the United States Institute of Peace examine issues 

related to the Balkan conflicts.

Recent Institute reports include

• No Stable Kosovo Without a Solution for Mitrovica, by Yll Bajraktari and Christina 

Parajon (USIPeace Briefing, July 2006) 

• Explaining the Yugoslav Catastrophe: The Quest for a Common Narrative, by Ylli 

Bajraktari and Daniel Serwer (USIPeace Briefing, January 2006)

• The Hague Tribunal by Ylli Bajraktari (USIPeace Briefing, June 2005) 

For online editions of USIPeace Biefings visit www.usip.org/pubs/usipeace_briefings.

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information on the subject.