DEMOSTAT: You were the ambassador of the United Kingdom to Yugoslavia from 1994 to 1997. Could you compare the situation then with todays Serbia regarding Serbias relationship with the West - the EU and the USA?

Quite impossible to compare the two situations.  At the time I was in Belgrade, Serbia was an international outcast, subject to punitive sanctions and close to a war with NATO.  It was a very difficult time.  Now, of course, Serbia has enjoyed almost 25 years of peace and relations with the West are close to normal apart from the friction caused by the two unhealed wounds from the breakup of Yugoslavia: Kosovo and the continuing instability in Bosnia.

DEMOSTAT: UK and the USA were not in favor of the disintegration of Yugoslavia until the last moment, unlike some other European countries. Do you think that Yugoslavia could have been preserved, at least as a loose confederation? Would that have prevented the bloody conflicts that followed?

Yes, it could have been preserved and if it had been then you would have been spared enormous destruction and suffering.  War is never the best solution for any problem.  But it would have taken a willingness on all sides to accept a much more decentralised system pending a swift transition into full membership of the EU which would have defused, to an extent, nationalist complaints.  Unfortunately the nationalists largely won out in the first multi-party elections in Yugoslavia and with Milosevic and Tudjman in the vanguard precipitated its catastrophic, bloody, violent disintegration.

DEMOSTAT: Could the NATO bombing have been prevented by a wiser policy of the Serbian leadership?

Again, war is not a good solution to international problems.  There was a problem in Kosovo that needed addressing and we should all share some of the blame for the fact that there was no peaceful solution.  If we had collectively had more foresight then Kosovo would have formed part of the peace talks in Dayton and a comprehensive deal might have been reached.  But the West was desperate to end the war in Bosnia, which had totally occupied diplomatic bandwidth for three years, and Milosevic was neither willing nor politically strong enough to volunteer to put Kosovo on the table. Even after I had left my post as ambassador, I returned twice in 1998 as a secret envoy of the British foreign secretary to see Milosevic to urge him down a path of peace. Up until Dayton the Kosovars had been led by Ibrahim Rugova, whom I counted as a friend, and who was certainly a man of peace and I think Milosevic took this for granted instead of working with him.

DEMOSTAT: Do you think that the NATO bombing of Serbia, for which, in addition to NATO, the Milosevic regime is also responsible, is still being used today to spread anti-Western sentiment in Serbia and strengthen the pro-Russian narrative?

Of course.  But that’s understandable from a Serbian perspective and there is nothing we can do about it except work hard to bring Serbia into the EU where its future lies as soon as possible. Russia has nothing positive to offer Serbia.

DEMOSTAT: What do you think about the Franco-German, i.e., European, agreement? Pristina undertook the obligation to form the Association of Serbian Municipalities, but it still needs to be fulfilled. Do you see this as the main reason why the process is stuck, and are you optimistic that after the formation of the Association, it will be possible to proceed with the implementation of the agreement?

Clearly. And obligations that have already been undertaken by one side must be honoured.  But the realisation of the ASM is not an end in itself.  What is important is that the momentum towards a final agreement between Kosovo and Serbia is maintained and we must therefore continue to talk about the shape of that agreement. 

DEMOSTAT: From the British intellectual circles, on several occasions came the opinion that division is the best solution to the Kosovo problem. How do you see that? You previously advocated for the exchange of territories; what do you think about that possible solution now?

The best solution to the Kosovo issue – as it was to the problems in Croatia and Bosnia – is that people should be allowed to remain in their own homes and that their human rights and rights as a minority should be respected by the majority while they, in return, accept the rule of law of the state they live in.  Mass migration, such as we saw from the Krajina, is not a good solution and if territorial swaps by consensus were the only way to avoid that then they should be given due consideration. The emphasis must be on consensus. The Badinter Commission failed to give enough weight to this possibility, concluding instead that the republican borders should become international borders.  But I hope that  the current Kosovo negotiations  are on course to bring about agreement.

DEMOSTAT: From Ahtisaaris plan to the Ohrid Agreement, autonomy for Serbs in Kosovo is not in question. Our research and internal analyses notice the distance towards the West and the Franco-German plan. Still, with the change in the governments rhetoric, we also see the potential for the majority to accept the Franco-German plan as something that could be considered a compromise. But there is only a way for normalization if Serbs get some degree of autonomy in Kosovo and the protection of cultural and historical monuments. We find that without autonomy, there is no medium or long-term normalization and that peace can hardly be achieved without it. How do you see the question of autonomy for Serbs? 

I don’t believe that there is any question about this: the Serbian minority will be given autonomy.  This is part of the painful compromises that the Kosovo leadership will have to make.  But there will be pain on both sides and the Serbian minority for its part must accept that autonomy relates to culture and the economy and to local government, not the right to secede – that is the bitter pill that the Serbian side must swallow in return.  This is going to be a difficult agreement to finalise, but everyone must think about the long term benefits, not the short term pain.

DEMOSTAT: Member of Parliament and President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament, Alicia Kearns, accused the Serbian Orthodox Church of participating in the smuggling of weapons from Serbia to Kosovo by allegedly using ambulances to smuggle weapons from Serbia and then unloading them into Orthodox churches. Kfor and the ambassador of Great Britain in Kosovo denied those accusations. Not long after that, an article on a media portal stated that the British intelligence service was preparing a new war in Kosovo. What is your view on these events?

The Balkans as a whole are a fertile area for conspiracy theories, fake news and disinformation.  As I recently wrote in an article, I don’t think that UK or indeed other countries’ parliamentarians  should become involved in making the situation worse and preventing agreement by disseminating palpably false information.  As for The Gray Zone, a not very bright child would spot that their story was nonsense. 

DEMOSTAT: Western parliamentarians sent a letter to senior officials of the EU, UK, and US and special envoys Miroslav Lajcak, Gabriel Escobar, and Sir Stuart Peach, requesting a change of approach to Serbia in resolving the Kosovo issue. They have criticized the lack of pressure placed on Serbia and concluded that EU and US efforts to resolve the crisis are not working. What is the significance of the letter, how should the Serbian authorities understand it, and to what extent will Western countries take into account what was said?

I sometimes think that there must be two Serbias: the one that actually exists and another one that exists only in the minds of critics of Vucic.  Firstly, anyone who has spent any time at all in the region knows that putting pressure on Serbs simply triggers unhelpful stubbornness ‘iz inata’.  I saw this for myself time and again. Secondly, there is currently no other political force in Serbia that can command a majority and the necessary authority to deliver a Kosovo deal.  So the result of a change of power would likely be a hard-right, pro-Russian coalition, possibly led by Mile Dodik who, we know, has Serbian citizenship, on the one hand and  on the other hand another coalition, based in the cities, that is broadly pro-Europe.  Such a situation would be far more likely to lead to civil war in Serbia than to any deal in Kosovo and the region would be condemned to another generation of isolation and instability.  I don’t know where these parliamentarians get their information, but if they are interested in a lasting solution to the Kosovo issue then they should let Kurti and Vucic get on with their talks and back the international negotiators.  We need to all work together now for a shared vision of a region that has recovered political stability, economic growth and freedom of movement.