The Kosovo Conundrum Still Haunts Us
The continuing inability to resolve the issue of Kosovo’s future status demonstrates a relative impotence on the part of the international community (in particular the European Union and the United States) put an end or at least put an order to an issue which complicates the path of the states of the western Balkans toward stabilization, integration and Europeanization. The situation that has developed in Kosovo today is one which basically dwells on the following questions: to what degree can the sovereign rights of Serbia over the territory of Kosovo take precedence over the rights of the region’s predominantly Albanian population? Or, in other words, the clash over the application of the principle of national self-determination versus the principle of territorial integrity and the unchangeability of state borders by force; or the quest for territorial separation on the part of a group regarding a region which constitutes metropolitan territory of a sovereign independent state. The o...