The winter season that we have just left behind, November 2023 to March 2024, has been very hectic in our director’s international activities. Below is the list of in-person participations in international fora.

November 2023

Dr. Yiorghos Leventis took part, upon invitation, in the 7^th Southeast Europe Energy Forum, held in The MET Hotel, Thessaloniki, Greece on Tuesday, the 7^th of November. The day conference concentrated on the synergies in energy cooperation between the Balkan countries. Bulgaria had a three speakers line up whereas Albania was represented by the Greek speaking head of the country’s Electricity Authority.

On the culture – performing arts dimension, Dr. Leventis took advantage of his presence in Thessaloniki to watch and peruse films at the 64^th Thessaloniki Film Festival. The occasion gave him the opportunity to interview in private the legendary Greek film director Nikos Perrakis.

December 2023

December (3^rd and 4^th) saw Dr. Leventis travelling to Brussels, the EU capital. He was a delegate, the only one from either Cyprus or Greece, in the EU Non-Proliferation & Disarmament Conference held over two days in the THON Hotel Brussels City Centre. Save for a South African speaker presence from Pretoria, the rest of the speakers concentrated on the Euro-Atlantic perspective on the current dire global geopolitical situation.

March 2024

On Friday, March the 8^th, Dr. Yiorghos Leventis gave a seminar at the Institute for National & International Security, INIS, in The theme of the seminar was the following:

The Status and Role of the British Bases in Cyprus and the Diego Garcia Base – Chagos Archipelago, St Mauritius: A Comparative Perspective

The audience of young researchers from Czechia, spending an internship at INIS, Belgrade, showed great interest in the subject of the use of the geo-strategic location of Cyprus by Great Powers. The lively discussion followed a lunch offered by the INIS Director.

Finally, on the 12^th and 13^th of March 2024, Dr. Leventis travelled to Budapest for the Budapest Balkans Forum https://budapestbalkansforum.hu/. The BBF has been extremely successful, attended by 700 delegates from the diplomacy, academy and the press world. As it usually happens, the International Security Forum’s Director was the only Cypriot presence in the conference. Furthermore, Dr. Leventis was joined at the two-day conference participation by Mr. Ion Craciunel, ISF Senior Research Associate and a seasoned expert in international affairs. The two-member ISF Cyprus delegation held a number of fruitful consultations at the margins of the conference and pledged to participate in the follow-up review BBF to be held in the Western Balkans during the forthcoming Hungarian presidency of the EU Council in the second half of the year.

In the last couple of years of German occupation (1943-44) ELAS fighters’ numbers swelled tremendously. By the time of the Nazi withdrawal from Attica, the Greek partisans under ELAS command numbered around 70,000 men and women. In effect, this initially irregular force of guerillas, formed in 1942, was transformed into a formidable regular army, by the time of liberation.

The EAM cabinet members’ resignation sparked a demonstration at Syntagma (Constitution) Square in central Athens. This peaceful demonstration turned into a bloody affair with a high toll of casualties as snipers fired into the leftist demonstrators’ crowd. Soon after, Greece would plunge into the abyss: a full scale civil war between the leftists’ supporters of EAM-ELAS on the one hand and the ill-armed Rightists-Royalists on the other. The latter, though originally the weak side, would soon enjoy the unwavering support of the amassing British troops marching into Athens unopposed having landed at Piraeus.

But what was the chain of significant international events that catapulted Greece into an internecine war whilst the Nazis were still retreating from the millennia old country that gave birth to Western civilization?

As German defeat appeared increasingly certain, Churchill and Stalin were busy carving the freed-from-Nazi-occupation world into predetermined spheres of their respective postwar influence. The infamous percentages agreement with respect to Soviet and British influence in the Balkans was reached already in Moscow where the two Allied leaders met on the 9^th of October 1944. At this crucial Kremlin meeting, Churchill jotted down, on a single notebook page, his idea of percentages’ influence in each Balkan country. He passed it on to Stalin who nodded his head in approval. Winston appeared momentarily hesitant: “Don’t you think we are too cynical [to decide the political future of entire peoples in their absence]? I better tear off this [disgraceful] note?” he offered to his wartime ally, Joseph. The latter, true to his name, ‘Man of Steel’, without a second thought, dispelled Winston’s doubts: “Keep it!” The dice was thrown! Greece was going to fall ninety per cent under British, ten per cent under Soviet influence, no matter what the actual sympathies or loyalties were amongst the Greek population.

Stalin, betraying his nationally powerful but internationally weak Greek comrades for the benefit of winning over Bulgaria and Romania, would grant Churchill a free hand to disembark tens of thousands of his troops at Piraeus and march them on to prop up a pro-British royalist regime in Athens.

Nine days after the Moscow percentages’ deal, the Nazis evacuate Athens: the 18^th of October 1944 marked the liberation day. An ominous power vacuum ensued.

Five days later, on the 23^rd of October 1944, the first British troops enter Athens. They encounter a mixed, if not apprehensive, reaction by the Greek population. The Nationalists-Royalists welcome them as saviors from communist domination. The Leftist anti-royalist camp view them as the new occupation force. Indeed, whilst on the trouble spot, Churchill ordered Lieutenant-General Sir Ronald MacKenzie Scobie, Commander of British Forces in Greece, to ‘rule Athens as an occupied city, if need be’. Taking up battle positions, ELAS guerillas poised for another anti-occupation war. Ironically, this time in their homeland’s capital, against the very allies they, not long ago, collaborated with, to blow up German patrols in the Greek mountains to the north.

Strikingly, Hugh Seton-Watson, Special Operations Executive (SOE) and later MI6 officer, noted in stark frankness: Had the Communists wished to seize power in Athens at this time they could easily have done so. They chose otherwise.

In London, Winston Churchill having secured Stalin’s acquiescence, was contemplating taking on the Greek communists weeks before his urgent Christmas descend in Athens. The British Prime Minister wrote to Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden (and his deputy in the Conservative Party) on 11th November 1944: I fully expect a clash with EAM and we must not shrink from it, provided the ground is well chosen.

Churchill spent his Greek Emergency Christmas at Hotel Grand Bretagne, Syntagma Square the very scene where the violent clashes first broke out on 3^rd December. ELAS Central Athens Command planted explosives all along the underground sewage canals to blow up the hotel, which served as the seat of the British Forces Command. Had they decided to detonate the explosives to eliminate Winston Churchill, they could easily have done so. They chose otherwise.

The Western alliance launched the air attack campaign which lasted for 79 days and nights – it started on 24 March 1999 – without the due authorisation by the UN Security Council. Obviously, the unauthorised air raids were in direct breach of international law: NATO was not in any conceivable way threatened by the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) to warrant a self-defence response.

‘Humanitarian intervention’ was NATO’s brand name for the massive air raid on the rump FRY. The Brussels headquartered alliance referred to the protection of the Albanian minority – residing mostly in Kosovo – from the federal Yugoslav army ‘onslaught’. But how humanitarian was NATO’s intervention? Here are the ‘humanitarian effects’ of the almost three-month long air raids: between 489 and 528 civilians killed on top of about one thousand members of the Yugoslav Security Forces. The bombings destroyed or damaged bridges, industrial plants, hospitals, schools, cultural monuments, private businesses as well as barracks and military installations. Modest estimates put the value of the immediate material damage inflicted at around $35 billion. This figure does not include the tremendous loss of future production capacity as a result of the obliteration of the country’s industrial base by NATO’s bomber jets. Twenty one years later, NATO has not compensated a single billion for this immense catastrophe. (Interested in learning excruciating details of this untold story? Browse the book entitled Crime in War, Genocide in Peace: The Consequences of NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 authored by three professors: Vladislav Jovanovic, Slobodan Petkovic & Slobodan Cikaric, www.slglasnik.com, Belgrade 2012).

A single extract from the afore-mentioned book would suffice (pp. 14-15):

Regrettably, it was not only that political and military leaders of the major NATO Members were absolutely unscrupulous in committing aggression … but they also totally disregarded their moral duty following the aggression, to provide assistance in the identification and rehabilitation of the contaminated areas, funding for overcoming the created [sad] situation and compensation to the victims or their families for their loss, traumatic experience and covering of medical treatment expenses. Instead of showing at least minimum solidarity with the innocent victims, NATO leaders are watching quite indifferently, from the heights of their invulnerability, how Russian experts specializing in demining and decontamination are assisting, at their own cost, the clearance of some contaminated areas. (Vladislav Jovanovic: NATO Aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Depleted Uranium)

As it happens Russian humanitarian aid to Serbia is not a desultory affair: early in April of the current year, the Russian Ministry of Defence dispatched 87 military virologists and doctors, special and protective equipment as well as sixteen pieces of military equipment to assist in the fight against coronavirus. The aid warranted eleven Il-76 flights to Serbia. Two Russian medical teams stayed on in the Serbian capital, where the most difficult epidemiological situation has developed, whilst five more were sent to the cities of Nis, Kikinda, Valevo and Chupria. President Vucic, whose party opposes NATO membership, thanked the Russian president, for volunteering this valuable aid at the height of the Covid-19 lock down.

Next Sunday, June 21^st, Serbia goes to the polls. The country’s future relations with NATO form part of these general elections’ foreign and defence policy agenda on which the battle for power is fought. Belgrade has a twenty-one year old unsettled bill in US dollars – undoubtedly an eleven digit figure – to claim from the unscrupulous Western alliance.

In less than a year time (May 2021) the Cypriot voters will also go to the polls for parliamentary elections. The island republic’s relations with NATO has also been part of the Cypriot national debate. The issue is complex; equally historically loaded. It was NATO-member Turkey which invaded Cyprus in 1974 using NATO weaponry. The US arms sales embargo imposed on Turkey in the aftermath of the invasion was so short-lived that amounted to a mockery. Like in the case of NATO air strikes on Serbia, Ankara failed to pay the billions in compensation for damages and war crimes committed by its invading troops in Cyprus. Not to mention NATO’s complete failure to reign in Turkish continuous trouble making in the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. So much so that an exacerbated French Ministry of Defence had to put out a no-word-mincing statement: there is a Turkey time bomb within NATO, let’s face it, otherwise we fool ourselves!                                            

To put things into perspective, the number of obliterated Kurdish communities in Turkey proper is twenty times bigger than the number of Greek communities (around 150) erased from Cyprus’ ethnic distribution map as a result of the brutal Turkish invasion of 1974. The ongoing death toll of ethnic Kurds stands, as of today, at eight times the number of Greek Cypriots killed (military and civilian) as a result of the 1974 two phased Attila operation. Moreover, the size of the Kurdish population seeking autonomy, civil and political rights in Turkey exceeds 12 million. Clearly, the magnitude of the Kurdish problem for Ankara is simply immense. The thirty years old heavy-handed approach of successive Turkish governments to this purely political problem, no doubt constitutes an ongoing war crime – possibly bordering genocide – for which Ankara should be held accountable by the international community.

Yet the approach of major European powers to Erdogan is one imbued by appeasement rather than indictment for the numerous war crimes committed diachronically by the Turkish leaderships against Armenians, Greeks and Kurds alike. This is certainly the case with Germany.

More and more analysts are convinced that hundreds of years of close relations between Germany and Turkey dictate today’s approach of Berlin to Ankara with reference to the Kurdish, possibly, the Cyprus issue as well as the unprecedented refugee crisis caused to a great extent by Ankara’s interventionist policy in Syria.

Let’s take a brief historical review of German-Turkish relations in order to establish the background to current approaches. At the high tide of Ottoman ascendance (16^th, 17^th & 18^th c.)  German states in the old continent adopted a friendly approach to the Sultan while the rest of Europe was teaming up against the Ottomans. In 1761 a peace and friendship pact was signed by Ferdinand II of Prussia and the Sultan. Consequently, the two parties exchanged ambassadors. Confirming the lasting nature of the close bilateral relations, the Prusso-Ottoman Treaty was renewed in 1790.

The following 19^th century saw an unprecedented flourishing of German-Ottoman bilateral relations:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recent visits to the neo-Sultan (mocked at in the recent German state broadcaster music video that provoked Erdogan’s wrath) seem to be a continuation of the path set out by the Kaiser who decided to come to the rescue of the Sultan at a time when his Ottoman Empire all but collapsed.

Having supplied Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1842-1918) with a German military mission under Marshal von der Goltz, Bismarck followed up his Turkophile move with a much-advertised visit to the Sultan-Khalifa.

Subsequently, Abdul Hamid II turned to Germany for aid to fight the Russo-Ottoman war of 1877-78 – which he badly lost: the Sultan was forced to sign up to the San Stefano armistice, just outside the walls of Constantinople, to save his skin from the advancing Russians. He drew German loans to wage this ill-fated war against the Russians while he struck a deal with Deutsche Bank for financing the Baghdad – Constantinople railway. German investments in end of 19^th century collapsing Ottoman Empire take an upward turn sideling French controlled Ottoman Bank. The closeness of German-Ottoman relations is testified once more by the three visits of Kaiser Wilhelm II to Constantinople (1889-1917).

German schools mushroomed in the Bosporus. The German Military mission helped to train the Young Turk officers who under Kemal’s leadership set out to eradicate the ‘infidel Armenians and Greeks’ thereby Turkifying Asia Minor once and for all. German military advisers no doubt inspired the young and ambitious Mustafa Kemal to go for the ‘final settlement’ of the thriving Christian minorities question in Turkey. It is interesting to observe that the elimination of the progressive Greek and Armenian communities in Anatolia took place twenty years earlier acting as a precursor of the results of the (in)famous Nazi Wannsee Conference (Berlin suburb, 20 Jan 1942) that took the decision on the ‘final solution to the Jewish question’ in the European space deemed vital by Nazi Germany.

In WWI the two countries were close allies. General Otto Liman von Sanders (1855–1929) served as the leading military adviser and commander in the Ottoman Empire. Already in 1914 the Germans ‘advised’ the Young Turks on the expulsion on Greeks from Eastern Thrace and Anatolia. In 1918, General von Sanders commanded an Ottoman Army during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign.

Early in WWII, Turkey and Germany signed a Non-Aggression Pact (1941). Turkey’s pro-Nazi Germany policy is well documented in a unique and fascinating account produced by Frank G. Weber entitled The Evasive Neutral (University of Missouri Press, Columbia & London, 1979). Turkish duplicity was laid bare only when German defeat was more than obvious: on 23 February 1945 Ankara declared war on Berlin.

In our next article, we shall continue our analysis on German-Turkish ties by looking into more interesting aspects of their recent close cooperation.

General Zdravko Tolimir was a former high ranking official of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) and was one of seven Assistant Commanders who reported directly to the commander of the General Staff, General Ratko Mladic. According to the indictment, Tolimir is charged with genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war committed between July and November 1995 against Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica and Zepa, eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The initial indictment against Tolimir was confirmed on 10 February 2005 and made public on 25 February 2005. He was arrested on 31 May 2007 walking alone by the road close to Sopotnik village. According to prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, it seemed that Rade Bulatovic, who at that time was Chief of the Serbian security-information agency (BIA), notified the police of Republika Srpska that Mladic or someone close to Mladic will be crossing the border.

Accordingly, on the first hearing Tolimir said that he was “arrested in the territory of the Republic of Serbia, the country in which he holds citizenship, and then transported to the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina of which he is not a citizen of”. He also refused to plead guilty or innocent and demanded from the Court to investigate his “illegal arrest and kidnap by the group of criminals“. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia denied having anything to do with Tolimir’s arrest.

In the meantime, opening statements of the trial of Radovan Karadzic started on 1 March 2010. Radovan Karadzic, the mastermind behind the war in Bosnia and the president of Republika Srpska from 1992 to 1996, started his defence at the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY). After postponing his trial for months and requesting more time to prepare his defence, the whole world started getting interested in the man who is accused of the worst genocide in Europe since the Holocaust. According to the indictment, Radovan Karadzic is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war.

During the opening statements, Karadzic testified that his people were defending themselves against Islamic fundamentalists who were trying to take over Bosnia. Karadzic trial is set to be the biggest and most important trial in the history of ICTY; there is no surprise that the trial of Tolimir got little attention. In the Western Balkans, where media dictates everything, Tolimir was just not as big as Karadzic.

The media also played an important role in 1992. It was used by Bosnian Serbs and other prominent figures to call for all men from Serbia to come to Bosnia to fight in aid of their brethren, claiming that Bosnian Muslims were killing Bosnian Serbs.

The appearance of Karadzic at the ICTY may have been the news of the month, if not of the year. However, soon later, just like the trial of Tolimir, Karadzic’s trial was lowered in the headline news rankings.

On 1^st March 2010, the same day Karadzic was set to start his opening statements, former president of Bosnia Ejup Ganic was arrested at Heathrow airport in London after an arrest warrant was issued by the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs. He is accused of conspiracy to murder wounded soldiers in breach of the Geneva Convention.

Ejup Ganic, who was born in Serbia’s mainly Muslim Sandzak region, worked as a researcher at the University of Belgrade. He had earned his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in engineering from the same university before gaining his PhD in Engineering Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.

Ejup Ganic was the president of Bosnia for less than 48 hours in May 1992, stepping in for Alija Izetbegovic who had been taken hostage by the Yugoslav People’s Army, JNA, at Sarajevo airport on returning from peace talks in Lisbon. Ganic negotiated the safe passage of the JNA troops that remained in Sarajevo. The army’s withdrawal was agreed with a JNA general, Milan Aksentijevic, in exchange for Izetbegovic’s release. But as the withdrawing JNA convoy swelled, one of the army transport vehicles came under attack from Bosnian forces seeking to free their president. Izetbegovic got back to the presidency building but dozens of JNA soldiers were killed in the meantime.

Serbian prosecutors believe Ganic ordered the attack on the convoy, and it is over this incident that Belgrade is seeking his extradition from London. Ganic has always maintained his innocence in the matter and insists he warned the UN, which supervised the deal, which Bosnian forces contained many volunteer groups, some of which were beyond his control.
In 2003, lawyers at the ICTY looked at the case drawn up by a Serbian military court and ruled there was not enough evidence to charge anyone in this matter with war crimes, or even that a war crime had been committed.

Ganic’s arrest is widely seen in Bosnia as a provocative move by Serbia, and as an attempt to equalize blame for the bloodshed in the war. Massive protests were held in front of the British Embassy in Sarajevo as well as in front of the Serbian Embassy. His arrest is set to worsen relations between BiH and Serbia.

Ironically Karadzic’s start of trial and Ganic’s arrest took place on the anniversary of Independence Day for BiH. On 1^st March 1992, 64 percent of Bosnian citizens voted for independence in the referendum. Nevertheless, this day is only celebrated in the Croat-Muslim Federation and not acknowledged in the Republika Srpska. As for the future, it looks like that the 1^st of March, 2010 will be remembered for marking the start of Karadzic’s trial and Ganic’s arrest and not for being the day BiH declared its independence.

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Social activist
written by Dino, March 27, 2010 

i was surfing the net and trying to find something on this subject. i don’t agree what some of the points that have been stated in this article. still, i was surprised to find a lot of info in one relatively brief article.

The 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement neglected or considered this sort of discrimination towards the “others”, as unsubstantial. The reason was that making politicians (the representatives of the three constituent people) agree and sign the Dayton Peace Agreement was the priority in order to stop the war.

Now, fifteen years later, Bosnia and Herzegovina is being rightfully sued for discrimination towards national minorities. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg delivered the Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Sejdic and Finci versus Bosnia and Herzegovina, condemning BiH of discrimination towards its national minorities.

The applicants were Mr. Finci who is a representative of the Jewish national minority and Mr. Sejdic who is a representative of the Roma national minority in the country. They are both prominent figures in the public national life. The applicants complained that despite possessing experience comparable to the highest elected officials, they were prevented by the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina from fielding candidacies for the Presidency and the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly solely on the grounds of their ethnic origin.

In 1996 the representative of the small Jewish community, Mr. Finci, pointed out to international officials that the right of election of the smaller national minorities like the Jews and the Roma people should have been protected under Articles IV and V of the Constitution. However, since Bosnia and Herzegovina was highly ethnically divided, a recovering and barely functioning state, questions about discrimination were never raised in any mainstream political circles except in the circles of national minorities which were subject to discrimination. The ratification by Bosnia and Herzegovina of Protocol 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights (2005) means that election to the Presidency and the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly, by democratic voting must be available to all citizens. Having this in mind, Mr. Finci, the representative of the Jewish national minority, wrote a letter to the Elections Commission about his intentions to apply both for the Presidency and the House of Peoples. The response was that he was unable to nominate himself due to his ethnic origin. The same response was given to the representative of the Roma national minority, Mr. Sejdic.

Both minority leaders submitted their complaints to the European Court of Human Rights in 2006. On 22 December, 2009 the ECHR announced its judgment. It reads: Prohibiting a Rom and a Jew from standing for election to the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly and for the State Presidency amounts to discrimination and breaches their electoral rights.

BiH is found guilty on a number of counts: violation of Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the European Convention of Human Rights, together with Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 (right to free elections), and violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 (general prohibition of discrimination) to the Convention.

The judgment came at the right time because it will leave enough space to make changes and design electoral rules ensuring appropriate representation for various groups before the elections in 2010.

After the judgment was announced none of the leaders of the three constituent peoples gave any response to it. The judgment did not cause any debates or shown any signs of will to make changes. Since 2010 is the election year in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it seems that the politicians are rather concerned about making their campaign successful than actually working together towards making Bosnia and Herzegovina a democratic state. Noticing this current political behaviour in BiH, the OSCE called upon the authorities to implement the ECHR decision against discrimination. The OSCE underlined the importance of the authorities using all available means to combat racism, thereby reinforcing the democratic vision of a society in which diversity is not perceived as a threat but as a source of enrichment.

Moreover, the ECHR indicated that: “there exist mechanisms of power-sharing which do not automatically lead to the total exclusion of representatives of the other communities”. The OSCE also stated that it hopes that the authorities of BiH will fully respect this landmark decision together with other decisions by the European Court of Human Rights, as well as those of relevant domestic courts and that this decision will create a momentum for a meaningful debate on the necessary constitutional changes.

During the Butmir Process, BiH politicians did show political will to make changes in adjusting the Constitution with the European Convention on Human Rights which in a way is necessary for the national minorities to soon have the right to run for the Presidency and the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly.

It is now only a matter of time until the ECHR judgment gets implemented. Whether this will happen before the elections in October 2010 or after is yet to be seen. I personally doubt that the ECHR judgment will make any difference in Bosnia and Herzegovina even though its implementation would represent the first change of the Constitution in line with the European Convention on Human Rights.

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MA student
written by Dino Fazlic , January 21, 2010 

this is a well-needed step foreword albeit a late one. since there are so many other things that seem to take priority on the political agenda, the issue at hand remains neglected.

great article. hope to read similar pieces from bosnia.

However, nobody can deny that George Bush senior promised, on the West’s part, that NATO would not take advantage of the situation by expanding eastwards. The European citizens, in particular, and the world citizens at large, naturally nurtured high expectations that the Cold War was approaching its end and that the demise of the East-West confrontation which troubled the old continent since the end of the catastrophic Second World War would soon be an accomplished fact.

As the Eastern bloc dissolved its military alliance, one would anticipate that the Western bloc would honour its part of the deal by dismantling its own military alliance. After all, what is NATO’s raison d’ être once the Warsaw Pact seized to exist? Instead of the mutual dismantling of military alliances, in the twenty years that lapsed since Germany’s reunification, the international community saw the Western military alliance do exactly the opposite: expand eastwards in an unprecedented way.

Driven by Washington, NATO has been encroaching closer and closer to Moscow’s vital space. The expansionist designs have been implemented at the expense of solving long running sores within the alliance itself. For more than a generation’s time, NATO failed dismally in resolving the complex sovereignty disputes between Greece and Turkey, its two old South-Eastern European allies.

Moreover, the Cyprus imbroglio involving importantly also the UK, in addition to Greece and Turkey, continues unabated. Alternating from a hot to a cold to a frozen conflict for more than two generations the Cyprus affair features probably as the longest running sore in the list of conflicts where NATO proved unable to come up with a lasting settlement. It is perhaps little known that the sizeable Eastern Mediterranean Island controlling strategic routes to Asia and Africa continues to hold the abominable record of being the most militarized place on earth. This fact has been recorded in UN Secretary General reports to the Security Council.

Moving to more recent years, one cannot fail to notice Kosovo as another NATO failure: ten years after the Western alliance’s humanitarian intervention the Kosovo conflict remains unresolved; the future of this southern Serbian province is now placed in the hands of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which is obliged, however lately, to issue a non-binding but influential ruling. NATO may have stopped the hostilities between the Serbs and the Albanians. Nevertheless it has failed in resolving Kosovo’s political future.

It seems that those who take decisions in NATO, intoxicated with their success of rampant expansion at the expense of the former Soviet Union meticulously plan to bring Moscow down to its knees by enlisting more and more members. The newcomers’ registration is by no means free of charge. It comes at a cost. The ‘novice’ member-states have to foot the bill of the so-called modernization of their armies to bring them up to NATO standards. I recall, a young Major from Skopje, FYROM, at the Indian Army’s UN Peace Keeping Training Centre at the outskirts of New Delhi (February 2008), briefed me in detail how many millions of dollars of US military hardware his impoverished country was obliged to order in order to gain the ‘wished for’ NATO membership, which is pending because of the country’s name (and minority) dispute with NATO-member Greece. Skopje claims that it can use the geographical region’s name Macedonia – which taken as a geographical entity, extends also into Northern Greece and Eastern Bulgaria – to designate its independent state and accuses Athens of mistreating a small Slav minority. The ongoing dispute originates since FYROM’s secession from Yugoslavia in 1992.

NATO honours its role as the prime instigator of the West’s weapons industry. The alliance issues standing directives to several member states to actively implement new vessel procurement programs: new members, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania are required to modernise their largely Soviet-era fleets. According to reports, the three countries are facing massive fleet upgrade. And of course Warsaw, Sofia and Bucharest will have to pick up the bill.

As argued above, the Aegean dispute for thirty-five years remains unresolved whilst Greece and Turkey continue to be the US best sophisticated weapons-systems customers worldwide, spending the highest GDP’s percentage for defence – more than double the alliance’s average and the two per cent that the Bush administration wished for from NATO members. The two NATO allies imported in aggregate in the 2000-2004 period more than $12bn worth of conventional weapons, mostly from the US.

The expansion of NATO, the doubling or tripling of its membership list of sovereign states coming under the US spell of influence does not necessarily mean that it is also a success story. It is rather a mess story. This short discussion of NATO’s record in Europe, challenges the ‘received wisdom’ that the Western Alliance, the most powerful military alliance in today’s world, is actually providing lasting solutions to problems of European security.

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Prof.
written by Aleksandar Fatic, December 15, 2009 

Leventis is correct in stating that a further NATO expansion may not be in the security interest of Europe. In fact, it may well jeopardise a further EU expansion, which, despite statements by the Heads of State of EU members, is in crisis, because there are problems with the management of the current policies of the 27 member states and countries on the Eastern and Southern EU frontier are nowhere near ready for membership.
The main problem for the EU is how not to enlarge, because failure to do so may push the Stabilisation and Association Process Countries (the rest of the Western Balkans) towards Russia, which is positioning itself fairly aggressively vis-a-vis the EU in military terms. Russia has just decided to build a military base in the town of Nish, in Serbia. In addition, apparently President Medvedev and the Serbian leadership have agreed that a Russian nuclear power plant would be built by 2015 in the Eastern Serbian town of Kostolac. Finally, the entire length of the Southern Stream pipeline through Serbia is likely to be guarded by the Russian Army. This means that the Russian missile capabilities would be drawn very close to the EU borders. In addition, failure to admit Turkey may well push it towards Iran, as EU influence in Turkey is already dwindling.
A way to make sure that the EU may be able not to expand further, and still make Russia feel more secure and prevent a security dilemma with Russia, is to hald further NATO expansion. If NATO further expands to include the Ukraine, this would threaten the conventional Russian defence doctrine, based on the availability of the depth of territory to absorb the initial conventional strike, followed by a cummulative mobilisation of conventional forces and expulsion of the enemy from the Russian Federation. With NATO expansion this doctrine may no longer be feasible, as the Moscow Military District would become the first line of Russian conventional defence.
All in all, Leventis rightly points it out that NATO has played its part in bringing Russia to fold in strategic terms, but the point has been reached where this may no longer be so.

Captain (Navy, retd)
written by Lars Wedin, December 15, 2009 

There are many ways to read history. This is one, definitively not mine. It is impossible to compare WP and Nato in this way. The former was an organisation of occupied countries under the absolute leadership of URSS. The second was and is an organisation of free countries. The reason that Nato was not dissolved is that its members did not want to.
Nato was enlarged not as a result of some evil masterplan but as a result of the willingness of the new members to join. There was also a great reluctance on the part of leading Nato members, US included, to enlarge. One reason that enlargement became necessary was exactly the Russian opposition. Because, if Nato members then had said no to accept the new members, it would have been the same thing as to grant Russia a sphere of interest. Spheres of interess are not acceptable in today’s Europe – something Cyprus should be aware of.
It should also be noted that Nato has tried, unsuccesfully, to increase cooperation with Russia through the Nato-Russia council. In fact, Russia has a much more favoured position vis-à-vis Nato than Sweden.
Regarding Nato’s future, one could be somewhat pessimist as it will not be easy for its members to agree on a useful new strategic concept this spring. This has to cater both for the “new” and the “old” Europe to quote Rumsfeld.
A weak and fragmented Nato would lead to renationalisation of European security and that is the greatest danger of all.

Dr. + Lecturer, Ionian University
written by Bill Mallinson, December 17, 2009 

Both comments above are intelligent and thoughtful,not leaving me with too much to say.First, let us remember that NATO is well beyond its shelf-life, having transmogrified from an essentially regional organisation into a fanatical attempt to be a worldwide policeman. It was designed to expire in 1999, but instead used the illegal bombing of Yugoslavia as a PR exercise to continue, and to expand, NATO (see Michael MccGwire’s famous article in International Affairs,volume 76,number 1, January 2000). Second, it is now an Anglo-Saxon tool to keep a European Army(in other words, a strong and independent CFSP, rather than the lukewarn and NATO-dependent ESDP) at bay. This explains the bigoted Geoffrey Hoon’s inane statement in November 2000 that ‘NATO is and will be the only organisation for collective defence in Europe.)Third, France’s re-entry into NATO’s integrated military stucture means that NATO may expire by default, transmogrifying into a Russia-friendly body, while an independent CFSP becomes, tortoise-like, more of a possibility, with more finabcial goodies for EU and Russian arms companies, than Anglo-US ones.There are various ways to skin a cat!

Dr. + Lecturer, Ionian University
written by Bill Mallinson, December 17, 2009 

Geoffrey Hoon said it in 2001, not 2000. Sorry!

Vice President, Democratic World Federalists, Councilor World Federalist Movement, LLM Candidate International Law
written by Shahriar Mahmoud Sharei, December 26, 2009 

Dr. Leventis, excellent short analysis of the status of NATO, after the cold war period, points out the important fact that NATO instead of dismantling is actually expanding! This might lead to a new version of cold war with Russia and its eastern allies. We have already seen signs in that direction with the 2008 events in Georgia and South Ossetia.

Further, NATO’s adventures in Afghanistan, gives a further role to NATO, way beyond its European borders. Acting as a world army, without the control of a world authority or control is a dangerous situation which eventually might cause friction, not only with Russia, but also with other non NATO nuclear states in Asia, such as China, India, or Pakistan.

Last but not least expansion and strengthening of NATO, certainly does not help Article VI of NPT and its goal toward “nuclear and general disarmament”.

…
written by Athanasios Fragkis, January 04, 2010 

Dr. Leventis’s analysis is well researched and making a sound point. It is however only half of the problem. The expansion of NATO in Europe, serves to deprive Russia of a security buffer zone but also, taken together with the massive military presence of the U.S. in Japan and alsewhere in the Pasific, appears to threten the very existence of Russia. It is therefore of vital importance to world peace, that a new,
perhaps UN based re-balance of power is worked-out, in order to ensure the re-run of the post W.W2 saga or even a conflict between the West a Russia.

The reactions to the early release of Biljana Plavšić from the Swedish Prison, after serving two-thirds of her ICTY-delivered sentence for war crimes in Bosnia, show that passions in the Balkans have not yet settled and that vengeful feelings arising from the war still fly high. The article by Selma Lomigora, accusing the Swedish Foreign Minister, Carl Bildt, for somehow conniving with Biljana Plavšić to secure her release, shows just how difficult it can be for academics to distance themselves from the passions arising from war-time victimisation.

Biljana Plavšić is an 80-year old woman, who participated in the top echelon of the Bosnian Serbian leadership during the Bosnian civil war 1991-95. As such, she simply had to be counted responsible for the decisions taken by that leadership, regardless of any personal involvement in their execution. Some of the statements she made during the war, in the frenzy of nationalism in the Western Balkans, at least seem to suggest that she condoned the policies that led to crimes committed by the Serbian side in the conflict. For this, she was sentenced, not least leniently, and spent years at this late stage in her life among thieves, robbers and killers, in a cell that only had artificial ventilation, in a prison far away from the family and friends, in Sweden.

The Swedish legal system is one of the most advanced systems in the world. Sweden is the country with one of the most successful crime-control policies, with the lowest rate of recidivism of offenders, and with one of the lowest crime rates in Europe. This is a system that contains the rule that a prisoner may be subject to an early release upon serving two thirds of the sentence, the rule that is the subject of critique by Ms. Lomigora. However, the same rule exists in the criminal legislation of the former Yugoslav states, including Bosnia and Serbia.  Moreover, the same rule exists in virtually all European countries’ criminal laws. This rule is a civilisational achievement, so it is unclear what Ms. Lomigora finds so offensive in it.

The article suggests that somehow Minister Bildt is at fault for having Mrs. Plavšić serve her prison term in Sweden. Does Ms. Lomigora suggest that the judicial chambers of ICTY are corrupt, so that decisions on where the convicted persons will serve their prison terms are made by somebody else, including ministers of member countries? The decisions in the Plavšić case, just like in any other case, were made by the judges, not by Mr. Bildt, who as Ms. Lomigora admits is one of the most capable foreign ministers world-wide. The anger present in the reactions in Sarajevo, including calls on the Sarajevo government to proclaim Minister Bildt a persona non-grata in Bosnia, frankly speaking, borders with serious stupidity. Academics should not take part in such irrational demonstrations of rage against the principles of criminal law and the basic functioning of the international political community.

It is unclear to the reader what Ms. Lomigora would like ICTY to have done with Mrs. Plavšić. Surely she could not have been killed, as there is no death sentence in international criminal law. Perhaps Ms. Lomigora would have liked Mrs. Plavšić to have been sent to a country like Iran or Afghanistan to serve her sentence? Perhaps these are examples of high quality judicial systems where prisoners have no rights to early release? If so, then Ms. Lomigora would have a very hard task to argue just how such decisions would be justified by reference to the same civilisational standards that were used to try Mrs. Plavšić for the barbarities committed against the innocent Bosniak civilians during the war. Should there be a double standard, so that the rights of seceding populations should be judged in accordance with the international humanitarian law, standards of the EU Convention on Human Rights, which is the highest standard in existence, and the somewhat lower, still highly effective, standard of the UN Convention, while at the same time the rights of those accused in such trials should be determined at the level of Sheriah law? Ms. Lomigora does indeed need to make it clear what her perspective is.

Equally distasteful is her label for Mrs. Plavšić “convicted war criminal”. Mrs. Plavšić might have been a convicted war criminal prior to serving her dues in prison. After release, she is a full-fledged citizen, certainly a person, and can no longer be labeled “convicted war criminal” any more than a person that serves a sentence for robbery is a “convicted robber”. These people have a criminal record, but they are free persons with a right to human dignity.

Finally, let us do justice to Ms. Lomigora’s article. The fate that befell the Bosniak population during the civil wars in Bosnia was horrifying. Bosnia is filled with graveyards of young men who had fallen in the war, whose lives were cut short. The Bosniak citizens of Bosnia have every right to be sad and to harbour the memory of the victims of the war in the historical memory of their people, as well as to do everything they can to prevent the tragedy that happened to their people from occurring ever again. However, the Bosniak people do need to move on and work constructively with the other two nations, the Serbs and the Croats, to make Bosnia a true European country. They cannot continue politics and academic discourse based on the hatreds and resentments that are perpetuated by the active politicians who date back to the time of war time atrocities. Only Bosniak leaders today include at least one politician who has continued work in politics since the 1991-95 period. Both the Serbs and Croats have brought in new people, free of the pressures of the past. In this sense, the psychological and emotional pressures that the elite politics exert on the Bosniak citizens of Bosnia stifle their ability to heal the wounds.

Arguably, the Bosniak population was the greatest victim of the war in Bosnia; however, let us not forget that the other two nations, the Serbs and the Croats, also suffered grave victims. The continual perpetuation of the discourse that basically does not differ from that of the wartime years does not help Bosnia prosper, and fuels calls for its partition. A rational social elite would take that into account and, rather than battering the 80-year old lady who certainly did not do any harm to anyone herself, and still had the courage to admit political guilt and go to prison, work on saving Bosnia as a functional country.

The comments on Foreign Minister Bildt are quite another matter. They truly do not deserve to be commented on. Minister Bildt, amongst other major political decision-makers in the EU, is one of the main supporters of Bosnia’s reforms and EU accession. The fact that he is been made the target of such vicious attacks in Sarajevo merely shows just how irrational the reactions to the war still are amongst the Bosniak political elite. This is unfortunate. The Bosniak social elite, unlike the political one, has much to offer and contribute to Bosnia’s progress towards the EU, and to the development and preservation of international law.

Finally, one point from jurisprudence: criminal law is subject to two basic principles: (1) conservatism and (2) clemency. Conservatism means that no radical solutions should be adopted in the imposition of criminal sanctions, because of their devastating effect in case of judicial error, and clemency means that the dignity and value of human life should be recognised through the principle of making sure that the convicted people are treated fairly and not excessively harshly with a view of their guilt. These principles are built into all international instruments of criminal law. Should they have been taken note of by Ms. Lomigora, surely her critique of Sweden and Ms. Bildt would have been less scathing.

* Dr Aleksandar Fatic is the Director of the Centre for Security Studies, Belgrade

Sweden was the fourth state to enter into an Agreement on the enforcement of sentences with the ICTY on 23 February 1999. The other states which have entered into similar agreements are: Italy, which was the first state to sign, on 6 February 1997, Finland (signed 7 May 1997), Norway (signed 24 April 1998), Austria (signed on 23 July 1999), France (signed on 25 February 2000), Spain (signed on 28 March 2000) and Denmark (signed 19 June 2002).

The question to be asked on this specific matter is: out of the four states which signed the agreement with ICTY, why did ICTY choose Sweden? Was it because it was known that after serving two thirds of the sentence one may request for an early release?

Nevertheless, Biljana Plavsic was not the only personality in the epicentre of her early release. Another name that was being closely related to hers is the name of the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt, who now holds the EU rotating presidency. We ask ourselves, why would a well known diplomat allow himself to be in any way related to a condemned war crime criminal?

Starting from the mid 1990s till today, Carl Bildt was everything from a mediator in the Western Balkans conflict, to the European Union Special Envoy to Former Yugoslavia from June 1995, to Co-Chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference in November 1995, and High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina from December 1995 to June 1997 immediately after the Bosnian War. From 1999 to 2001, he served as the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the Balkans, and today as the president of the EU rotating presidency. Up until today and especially having the Butmir summit in mind, it is obvious that Carl Bildt has special interests in BiH and is determined to find solutions to existing problems.

But his never ending help and involvement in BiH during all these years has become questionable due to the special form of apparently has, with Biljana Plavsic. No one knows for sure when and why this friendship did become more than a diplomatic relation, but there are some facts which support its existence.

To begin with, during Mrs. Plavsic’s trial, Carl Bildt acted as a witness in her defence stating that she was never a part of a narrow circle of Bosnian Serbs extreme nationalists. But her statements say otherwise. On one occasion she said: “I’m not saying that we no longer wish to live with Croats, but rather that we shall not allow them to live with us. On the another occasion she stated: “The Serbs of Bosnia, especially those living in frontier regions, have developed and refined a special ability to sense danger to the nation and to evolve mechanisms for self-protection. In my family it was always said that the Serbs of Bosnia were much better than the Serbs of Serbia… As a biologist I know that the best ability to adapt and survive is possessed by those species which live next to others that are a threat to them… Hence, the separation of Serbs from other nations is both a natural and a necessary phenomenon.” (‘Borba’, Belgrade, 28 July 1993.)

These were the words of a now free war crime criminal Biljana Plavsic. Mrs. Plavsic has pleaded guilty to a single count of persecution — a crime against humanity — as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign to drive Muslims and Croats out of Serb-controlled areas of Bosnia. Her guilty plea was part of a plea bargain to have other charges, including genocide, dropped. During the war in Bosnia Mrs. Plavsic celebrated the heroism of Zeljko Raznjatovic-Arkan, the perpetrator of horrific ethnic cleansing in BiH, saying:

“I would prefer completely to cleanse eastern Bosnia of Muslims. When I say cleanse, I don’t want anyone to take me literally and think I mean ethnic cleansing. But they’ve attached this label ‘ethnic cleansing’ to a perfectly natural phenomenon and characterized it as some kind of war crime.” (‘Svet’, Novi Sad, 6 September 1993). Looking at this statement, one wonders how and why the ICTY passed this and dropped the charges?

Besides Mr. Bildt acting in her defence, he paid regular visits to Mrs. Plavsic while she was serving her sentence in Sweden. Mr. Bildt even brought her a cake for her birthday and acted as a close friend. Mr. Bildt also made a very significant phone call to the Swedish minister of Justice at that time (2000-2006), asking him to make sure that Mrs. Plavsic will be treated with care.

Just after Mrs. Plavsic was released from prison, a renowned Swedish politician Thomas Bodstrom (Minister of Justice 2000-2006) asked for a parliamentary investigation on weather the Swedish government made the right decision on the early release of Biljana Plavsic and how responsible for that decision was Carl Bildt. He thought that Carl Bildt behavior towards Biljana Plavsic was suspicious. Mr. Bodstrom said that when Mrs. Plavsic came to Sweden she did not have any special treatment. But in 2006, Mr. Bodstrom party lost in the elections by the conservatives in whose government Carl Bildt became the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Soon after that, Mrs. Plavsic asked for an early release and Carl Bildt was one of the ministers who made decisions on those requests in the name of government. Could this all have been a coincidence? Mr. Bildt tried to explain this matter by saying that the decision is not made by the Swedish government, but by the ICTY. This is not true, because the Swedish government makes these decisions.

In addition to this, after serving two thirds of sentence, the remaining one third can be spent freely only if the person is being supervised by the police. This is done because if the person commits another crime, it will be brought back to jail. But the problem with Mrs. Plavsic is that she has left Sweden immediately after her release, so now this law does not apply to her anymore. Knowing this, Mr. Bodstrom said that Mr. Bildt is in a serious conflict of interests if he helped Mrs. Plavsic in her early release.

Besides reactions in Sweden, BiH also reacted. The President of a National Theatre Gradimir Gojer and the Dean of the Faculty of Islamic Science Dzemaludin Latic demanded from the BiH government to proclaim Carl Bildt persona non grata. The President of BiH rotating Presidency Zeljko Komsic cancelled an official visit to Sweden in protest. Just to make matters worst, thirty prisoners from Zenica top security jail prison sewed their lips together in protest.

The University of Sarajevo also reacted by taking away all given academic rights from Mrs. Plavsic saying that she has ruined a good reputation of an academic professor and made enormous damage to the University. The University is also protesting over the involvement of Carl Bildt in the early release of Biljana Plavsic.

Observing the facts above, it is inevitable to conclude that Carl Bildt did cooperate with Biljana Plavsic but not just on her early release. Mr. Bildt could have lobbied to put Mrs. Plavsic in Sweden prison knowing that she will serve two thirds of her sentence so that she could come back on the political scene. This is because there was never a law which would prevent war criminals to run for elections in BiH, so there is a big possibility we could see Mrs. Plavsic again acting on the political scene. And since two hundred laws were rejected by Bosnian Serbs in the past due to the entity voting, there is a possibility that a law of not allowing war criminals to run for elections could be rejected too. On the other hand, even if that does not happen, it has reached its goal in once again creating fear and loosing sense of security among the citizens.

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written by amy, December 10, 2009 

War crimes are serious and it is confusing to me why the Swedes would have the law that they only need to serve two thirds of their sentence. Thats too bad. All war criminals should have to serve their entire sentence, in m opinion. Selma your article was nice and concise. Good work!

written by amy, December 10, 2009
I think Carl Bildts motives should be examined. I don’t know much about the whole political situations in the balkans right now. But to me it is obvious that Mr. Bildts is trying to protect Mrs. Plavsic. It is also evident that Mrs. Plavsic still feels the same way she felt when she committed the war crimes. From her quotes, there is still a lot of hate in her. And yet, she was able to leave Sweden immediately after being discharged. Seems that she may try to cause more dissensions and trouble, which is the last thing the balkans needs.

The bilateral agreement on the base was signed by the Serbian Minister of the Interior, ivica Dačić, and the Russian Minister for Emergencies, Sergey Shoygu, who commands an “interior army” of 50 000 soldiers, including armored units and an aviation. In addition, the implementation of the Russian gas pipeline through Serbia, with the pipes actually being installed on Serbian soil, is linked with the deployment of the Russian military to guard the pipeline. Finally, an idea of a Russian nuclear power station being built in Serbia has reportedly also been broached.

Clearly the course of events with the military base, initially described as “natural disasters related” follows the same logic that was used in the deployment of military forces elsewhere, including in Kosovo. There, too, the forces were initially described as intended to “intervene in disasters”, to quickly transform into a conventional army. In addition, Shoygu himself refused to confirm that the base would only be staffed by personnel from his ministry, by responding that journalists ought to ask President Medvedev about the final details. In other words, it is reasonable to assume that, along with the pipeline and the already ongoing de-mining in Serbia, conducted by the Russian teams, a strong, military base, possibly with nuclear weapons, might very well emerge by 2012 in Serbia. As Belgrade diplomats acknowledge, this means that the Serbian deliberations about NATO accession are in fact over before they have even been conducted in the public — NATO cannot possibly accept a country with Russian military on its soil, and the consequences for Serbia’s EU accession are made proportionally dimmer. The fait accompli methodology applied by Medvedev has, in a sense, settled many of the Euro-Atlantic debates that had raged in Serbia until the day of his arrival.

Perhaps the more interesting development, however, is the visit by the Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s two day visit to Serbia just a week after Medvedev’s departure. President Gul’s visit comes in succession to the July 2009 visit of Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davatoglu, who along with the Serbian foreign minister mediated in talks between the confronted Bosniak leaders in Serbia’s region of Sandzak. Minister Davatogly said that Turkey would invest in the construction of a new highway from Belgrade to the Adriatic Sea, thus providing positive impetus for a further improvement of relations with Serbia.

Turkey is emerging as key player in the Balkans once again, this time by working to pool together the creative political energy by the Balkan’s Muslim communities, torn apart by the fear-mongering, manipulative and dominating Serbian political elites. The region of Sandzak, populated predominantly by the Bosniak community, is being described as the new “powder keg” in Serbia, with Serbian security services heavily involved in “keeping the peace” there. However, Serbia is facing an economic collapse in 2010, and its internal political scene is going through a fission process not unlike its territorial disintegration, with Kosovo’s secession as the latest event in the process. There is widespread speculation that the newly emerging Serbian Progressive Party might win the next election and there is frantic diplomatic activity in Belgrade trying to ensure that the party takes a moderate and tolerant course towards the open questions in Sandzak and other areas. Turkey’s influence, despite the resistance by some Serbian nationalist circles, is highly desirable and in fact necessary to make sure that a new set of relations is forged where a confrontation would be avoided.

It appears that the Turkish government has read the dynamics of Serbian political life as clearly and accurately as did the Russian Government. In order to set a process of solving the ongoing issues in motion, the current Serbian political establishment must be faced with a fait accompli: otherwise the constantly changing course of Serbian foreign policy will continue to dodge any real solution until problems mount to a point where an all out confrontation becomes unavoidable. Thus the visits by President Gul is a masterly diplomatic move that attempts to cast the new regional solutions vis-à-vis the interests of the Bosniak community and Turkey itself “in clay” before it is dry after the big Russian entry in mid-October.

*Professor Aleksandar Fatic is Director, Centre for Security Studies, Belgrade

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A return of Turkey as the Problem-Solver in the Balkans.
written by Christine S. Antoniou, February 08, 2010 

The views of Dr. Aleksandar Fatic which I find very interesting, goes to the root of the problem on the Balkans and exemplifies with a very smart way that Turkey’s diplomatic attempts to improve relations with Serbia is a way of protecting the interests of the Bosniak Muslim community. With many perceiving Turkey to be as a mother to Bosnia, clearly, the visit of Abdullah Gul marked an attempt of de-escalating Serbian confrontation with the Bosnians before Russia “intervene” in the region.