Koštunica rejects NATO membership for Serbia

[Vasiliye]

B92 - News - Politics - Koštunica says DSS is against NATO membership (http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2007&mm=09&dd=15&nav_category=90&nav_id=43781) ^

Posted on 09/15/2007

BELGRADE -- Prime Minister and DSS leader Vojislav Koštunica said Saturday his party opposes Serbia’s NATO membership.

Speaking at the session of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) Main Board in Belgrade, Koštunica said that the party’s "principled position exceeds the framework of the relations with the Alliance pertaining to Kosovo’s status settlement process."

“Our standing is primarily founded on a belief that Serbia should remain militarily neutral and that our state and national interests require an absence of membership in any military alliance."

"What is more, there are no contradictions between being a signatory of the Partnership for Peace Program and refusing to join NATO,” he said.

“I am talking about the difference between preserving the liberty to make decisions and take action on one side, and being deprived of that liberty on the other,” explained Koštunica.

He stressed that NATO illegally bombed Serbia, that its troops came to Kosovo and that UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari’s plan unambiguously envisioned power without any limits for the Alliance in the province.

“I believe that the DSS has an obligation to initiate a public debate so as to point to the genuine meaning of the implementation of Annex 11 of Ahtisaari’s plan. How to name a structure in which NATO has unlimited power but ‘a NATO state’,” wondered the Serbian prime minister.

He added that, during preparations of Serbia’s response to a possible recognition of Kosovo's unilaterally proclaimed independence on the part of the U.S. and other western states, taking a clear stand towards NATO and its role in the project could not be avoided.

“If the threats come to being, and prominent NATO members acknowledge independence proclaimed unilaterally, the question of Serbia’s NATO prospects would, as far as the DSS is concerned, be not only of the political but of the moral nature as well,” Koštunica said.

“How can it be possible for Serbia to join a military alliance that first bombed it, and then sent its troops to Kosovo circumventing the UN Security Council, only to recognize the unilaterally proclaimed independence of an integral part of Serbia,” Koštunica told his party's main board.
TOPICS: Foreign Affairs

[Vasiliye]

Serbia increasingly leaning toward Russia; demonizes US and NATO

BELGRADE, Serbia: If it were up to Serbia's nationalists, the country would now be applying for membership in the Russian federation and selling off its assets to Russian tycoons — all in gratitude for Moscow's blocking of independence for the breakaway Kosovo province.

The increasingly vocal calls for closer political and economic ties with Russia have triggered fears in the West that Serbia could drop its proclaimed goal of joining the European Union and NATO, and opt instead for a variation of Russian President Vladimir Putin-style controlled democracy.

The nationalist drive for Serbia to abandon its pro-Western polices — adopted after late President Slobodan Milosevic's ouster from power in 2000 — is a tradeoff for Russia's success in blocking U.S. and EU plans to grant statehood for Kosovo through the U.N. Security Council, analysts say.

Serbia's ultranationalist leader Tomislav Nikolic, who heads the country's largest political party which is expected to come to power in future elections, has expressed his wish for Serbia to become "a Russian province rather than an EU member." He has urged the government to revive a long-defunct Milosevic initiative for Serbia to formally join the Russia-Belarus union.

Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, who is increasingly siding with the extreme nationalists, has said that Belgrade "will know how to thank" Moscow for its support over Kosovo.
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He said Serbia would not join NATO if Kosovo should gain independence. He also has bitterly criticized Washington and NATO for their support of an independent Kosovo.

Dragan Jocic, Serbia's interior minister and a member of Kostunica's conservative party, said the pro-Russian shift "is logical, because Russia has prevented the partition of Serbia's territory in the Security Council."

Although it formally remains part of Serbia, the ethnic Albanian-dominated province has been run by NATO and the United Nations since 1999, when NATO airstrikes ended a Serb military crackdown against separatist rebels.

The nationalist strategy, which would turn Serbia into the only close Russian ally in Central Europe, has so far been blocked by two pro-Western parties in Kostunica's governing coalition, which has seriously been shaken over the issue.

A political shift by Belgrade would allow Russia to make significant gains in controlling the Balkan energy networks, which Russia sees as a crucial corridor to providing natural gas and oil to Western Europe. It could provide a boost for Russian investors, who currently rank only 18th among foreign investors in Serbia — far behind EU and U.S. buyers, according to government figures.

It would also please the Kremlin which has been irritated by NATO's eastward expansion in recent years. For Zoran Ostojic, a member of Serbia's opposition Liberal Democratic Party, Russia's ultimate goal would be "to gain a banana republic in the heart of NATO in order to rock that boat."

Although Serbia has always maintained close ties with its Orthodox Slavic ally, the two nations were never in any formal political or military alliance, with Serbia in the end always aligning with the West.

Russia's ambassador to Belgrade, Aleksander Alexeyev, has described current Russia-Serbia relations as "the best" since World War II, and added that Moscow "would not oppose Serbia's EU membership, if it wished to take that path."

Kostunica's government appears to favor Russia's firms in the planned sale of some of the Balkan state's biggest assets, but he has dismissed allegations that the favored status is directly linked to Moscow's diplomatic support over Kosovo.

Russia's OAO Lukoil is in pole position in the privatization of Serbia's state oil company, NIS; Aeroflot is considered a "strategic" buyer for the national airline, JAT Airways, and Russian metals tycoon Oleg Deripeska — after holding a highly publicized meeting with Kostunica — is said to be the main bidder in a reopened tender for the country's largest copper mine, RTB Bor.
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[Truth Bearer]

He can't accept NATO as it then compromises Serbia's position towards Kosovo.On top of that his only big ally Putin will get seriously pissed off and really so he should.

[Vasiliye]

Without membership in NATO, even with closest possible relationship with Russia (and due to geography and other factors, military relationship cannot be something more than symbolical), Serbia will found itself surrounded with NATO states with aggressive ambition towards its territory: Hungary, Bulgaria and from the next year, Croatia Albania and perhaps FYROM.

On the other hand, it would be truly humiliating if Serbs were to passionately aspire to be part of NATO after that organization bombed them in 1994 and 1999, taking Kosovo from them.

So its "damn if you do, damned if you don't"

I count on Greek veto for FYROMs entrance into NATO plus on probable escalation of its uneasy peace into conflict by spring, 2008.That may turn FYROM's politic closer to Serbia and Russia and perhaps Bulgaria (although in NATO) may join an informal coalition against the "Green belt" (Bosnia, Rascia (Sanxhak), Western FYROM, South-Eastern Bulgaria)

[Tsontos]

Putin could have offered the Serbs his support on the condition they snobbed NATO..