Ariel Rusila's Conflicts [Ex-BalkanPerspective]

R elated to Serbia's EU association process nearly every progress report of European Commission highlights Serbia's cooperation with Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Although the country has demonstrated its commitment to moving closer to the EU by building up a track record in implementing the provisions of the Interim Agreement with the EU and by undertaking key reforms the fact that so far as indictees Ratko Mladi ć and Goran Hadži ć are still at large it is hard to demonstrate full cooperation with ICTY. As ICTY cooperation is a key priority of the European Partnership this makes a formal cause to halt association process (and if fugitives will be deported to Hague then the next obstacle will be recognition of Kosovo). While EU speaks about standards or criteria during association talks so should some already members look occasionally mirror. Few news about older war crimes from last months popped to my eyes and raise a doubt in my ...

A lot of optimism related to the Israeli-Palestinian talks begins to wane. Before last elections USA tried corrupt Israel with offer, which content has different versions, for freezing settlement construction in West Bank and Jerusalem in return. The offer did not succeed thus, the U.S., Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have quietly agreed about time-out and talks will resume in January, 2011. The time is used first to replace earlier mediator George Mitchell, whom Obama fired, with next high level envoy or even with Mrs Clinton. Second, the time-out is necessary for Palestinians to continue reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah which began last month in Damascus under the Syrian aegis and which can lead an unite Hamas/Fatah delegation representing the Palestinian Authority in January 2011. Third informal negotiations between Hamas and Israel brokered by Germany may continue. Current publications of new Wikileaks documents are giving some interesting detai...

W ith the recently launched Palestinian-Israeli peace talks receding into a state of limbo and while Yemen is slowly disappearing from headlines a smaller stories from the Middle East are going on in the marginals of western mainstream media. However these some times crueler actions may change situation on the ground even more than high level official diplomacy. News from peace talks too often are limited to photo opportunity to see negotiators and host making theatrical handshake - of course studying the outcome of talks one has some base to claim that this staging indeed was the (only) content of meeting. However outside cabinets in theatre of operations actions are following one another although they are not dominating front pages of mainstream media. Here I have collected some fragments of information flow from first part of November. U.S. strikes to Gaza A missile fired from an American warship in the Mediterranean hit the car in which Muhammad Jamal A-Namna...

W hen UN made new Kosovo related decision on September 2010 it was believed that resolution would enable a dialogue for resolving this frozen conflict. With minimal preconditions new direct talks between Belgrad and Pristina and a possible deal between local stakeholders could open the way for sustainable solution. However resent events have have resulted in stalemate: President of separatist Kosovo government resigned and dissolution of the government itself have put the focus in Kosovo on next elections which will be held in December 2010. Meanwhile also Serbia starts soon preparations for its next next elections, due by spring 2012. Thus there is a narrow negotiation slot between the time when a new Kosovo government takes office and to end successfully before the Serbian election campaign makes any compromise impossible. The core question is if there is political will to start talks with the aim of reaching as comprehensive a compromise settlement as possible. ...

In my earlier article - Bosnia on the road to the EU, sorry to Dissolution - I described a bit the background and made some small forecast about outcome which seems to be not so far away from reality. Now elections are held and most votes counted. Turnout in the vote -- the sixth general elections in Bosnia since the end of the 1992-95 war - was some 56 percent, the highest since 2002 (in 2006 the turnout was 55.3 percent).The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has assessed that the elections were generally in line with international standards for democratic elections, although certain areas, including ethnicity and residence-based limitations to active and passive suffrage rights, require further action. Bosnia is created according Dayton agreement and split into two semi-independent entities – the Serb dominated Republika Srpska (RS) and Bosniak-Croat populated The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) federation which together form the basis of Bosn...