A victory in Kosovo requires the full implementation of the Dayton peace accords, particularly the return of refugees, said conference speakers Richard Perle and Zlatko Lagumdzija. It's a question of credibility, participants said. Failure to secure the peace in Bosnia jeopardizes NATO's ability to achieve success in Kosovo. Multiethnic societies are the basis of Balkan stability. Albanians, wherever they are, will only be safe within genuinely multiethnic societies, said President Meidani.
Partition ensures isolation and vulnerability.
Leaders noted that public opinion for NATO in the Balkans is positive, but tenuous. Countries in the region are experiencing the effects of the war on their hard-won economic growth and democratization. They will survive the collateral effects of the crisis only if the international community backs the long-term political and economic development of the Balkans. Because of a regional perception that they were abandoned by the West after WWII, a premature exit under current circumstances risks popular support for European principles of government, including minority rights and political, social and religious tolerance. Milosevic-style regimes will prevail as democratic governments in Macedonia, Albania, and Montenegro are threatened and possibly fall.