Kosovo Redux
Independence for the Serbian province is inevitable, but Russia hopes to make it a crisis for the West.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

A YEAR AGO this week we published an editorial noting that most people inside and outside of Serbia expected the province of Kosovo -- where the United States led a military intervention eight years ago -- to become an independent state, possibly by the end of 2006. Instead, this week, the United States, four of its NATO allies and Russia met in Vienna to launch a new round of negotiations to determine Kosovo's future -- that is, the same question whose answer was generally acknowledged a year ago. Why the potentially dangerous paralysis over the most volatile piece of Europe? The cause is partly the familiar intransigence of Serbian politicians, who decline to publicly accept a partition that they -- and most of their voters -- know is inevitable.

The main cause of the delay, however, is Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has made Kosovo part of his aggressive campaign to reassert Russia's clout in Europe and portray his regime as a counter to the United States. Mr. Putin's ambassador at the United Nations last week made clear that he would veto a resolution that would have implemented a U.N. mediator's plan to put Kosovo on a path to independence, with oversight by the European Union and with elaborate guarantees for the 10 percent of its population that is Serb.

Russia's public position is that it will oppose any solution for Kosovo that is not accepted by Serbia. This cynical stance has the aim of locking Serbia's leaders into their intransigence, isolating the Balkan country from the European Union -- which has offered it the prospect of membership -- and making the former heart of Communist Yugoslavia dependent on Moscow. Mr. Putin also hopes to split the European Union, which is divided about what to do about Kosovo in the absence of a U.N. resolution, and to prove that he can thwart the United States, which has been the principal defender of Kosovo's Muslim and ethnic Albanian majority.

To its credit, the Bush administration has refused to be cowed by the Russian tactics. Instead, officials have made clear that the new negotiations will be limited to 120 days and that regardless of their result the United States will seek recognition of an independent Kosovo. This will require not suasion over Mr. Putin but careful diplomacy with European governments, which must be persuaded to recognize Kosovo without a U.N. resolution. Britain, France and probably Germany can be counted on; the harder work lies with such nations as Cyprus, Greece, Spain, Romania and Slovakia, some of which worry about possible separatist claims in their own countries.

The consequences of a Western failure to recognize an independent Kosovo this year could be severe. Violence could easily erupt in the tense province, as it has several times since 1999. And Mr. Putin could conclude that belligerent obstructionism is a winning strategy for Russia, in Europe and elsewhere. Though besieged with other foreign policy problems, the Bush administration needs to invest in the tough diplomacy needed to ensure that those outcomes are avoided.