HELSINŠKE SVESKE №20 - Helsinki FILES №20 - Untying the Kosovo Knot : a two-sided view
Helsinki FILES №20 - Untying the Kosovo Knot : a two-sided view

Author(s): Fahri Musliu, Dragan Banjac
Subject(s): Politics, International relations/trade, Security and defense, Politics and society, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Inter-Ethnic Relations, Ethnic Minorities Studies
Published by: Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava u Srbiji
Keywords: future status of Kosovo; conference; politics; Serbia; Albania; North Macedonia; Croatia; democratic society; regional stability; minority; international standards; decentralization; security
Summary/Abstract: The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia has striven to start an Albanian-Serb dialogue for over a decade. In 1997 in Ulcinj (Montenegro), the Helsinki Committee organized, jointly with the Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms in Pristina, the first conference which brought together Albanians and Serbs in the country itself, then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The participants adopted a joint declaration stressing the need to convene an international conference to solve the Kosovo question. The next conference, held in Belgrade at the end of November 1998 and co-organized by the Helsinki Committee, the Kosovo Helsinki Committee and the International Helsinki Federation, dealt with the matter of self-determination. The third conference, scheduled to take place in Pristina in June 2005, is a logical follow-up to the first two, this time inevitably focusing on Kosovo’s status. This unquestionably worthy undertaking has the backing of the US Institute of Peace, and we appreciate its recognition that the Kosovo question cannot be solved without the participation of local actors. Bearing this in mind, the Helsinki Committee has put together a book of interviews with prominent Serbs and Albanians who will be participating in determining the status of Kosovo in some way or another. The book offers an overview of the positions of the two sides to be referred to by the third conference participants in thinking through the future of Kosovo.

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