COOLING OFF WITH ALBANIA AND RUSSIA'S ROLE IN THE BALKANS

AIM TIRANA, June 23, 1999

The Russian diplomacy went through a difficult period in order to secure a role of its own in the solution of the Kosovo crisis that would also give Moscow a military role both in Kosovo and in the region. However, it has not properly calculated the factors and elements that, if not duly taken into account, may lead to the weakening, if not the total neutralisation, of this role. Now the more important obstacle which prevents Russia from achieving an effective role and presence in Kosovo and farther afield does not originate from the United States or NATO, with which it went several times to the brink of an open conflict during the Kosovo crisis. At present the threat to the Russian strategy aimed at having a military role in the Balkans comes from an unexpected quarter ¥ the tiny and weak Albanian State.

On June 14, during his Danish visit, Albania¥s Prime Minister Pandeli Majko expressed the resolute oposition of his government to Russian Army¥s sudden intervention in Prishtina, which it did without warning NATO and passing over its command. He stressed that a separate Russian command would constitute a factor of destability in the region and warned the Russian Army that it could face a situation similar to that it came up agaist in Afghanistan. As well as that, ten days before the Albanian Prime Minister had issued a special declaration voicing the determined opposition of his government to a separate Russian military presence in Kosovo. However, after the unexpected appearance of the Russian contingent at Prishtina airport, his declaration showed that a deep split had occurred in the relations between Albania and Russia.

Pandeli Majko is the first Albanian prime minister of the post- communist period to officially and publicly denounce Russian policy. This marked the second great split between the little Balkan state and the great Russian state. The first split occurred for ideological reasons 38 years ago when, as a result of a clash between Enver Hoxha¥s Stalinist regime and Khrushchev¥s Russia the latter lost the largest naval base it had ever had in the Mediterranean, the Pashaliman base in South Albania. Yet the price Russia would have to pay after this second split might be still higher and have a negative influence on Russia¥s role and military ambitions both in Kosovo and in the Balkan region.

In the course of its efforts within and outside the Contact Group to obtain an important place in the resolution of the Kosovo crisis Russia has neglected Tirana, unlike the other states of the Contact Group. Only on the eve of the second round of the Rambouillet Conference on Kosovo in March this year did Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov pay his first visit to Tirana to request Albania to accept a Russian military presence in Kosovo.

Although the Albanian state, just as the whole Albanian people, was dissatisfied with Russia¥s openly siding with Milosevic over the question of Kosovo, it exercised restraint and did not openly react to the pro-Serb measures and actions of Russian diplomacy. This came about perhaps because of some hope or illusion that Russia would abandon its traditional alliance with its Belgrade Slav Orthodox brother. Or perhaps because of some hesitation on the part of the Albanian State which tried not to inhibit the international process for the solution of the Kosovo crisis. However, the sudden appearance of the Russian contingent at Prishtina airport on June 12 and its arrogant stand toward the British and French troops reminded the Albanian Government that silence was no longer diplomacy.

Throughout the protracted Kosovo crisis it is hard to find a point the government and the opposition were unanimous about as was the case with their resolute stand toward the sudden Russian military intervention and against any form of independent Russian military presence in Kosovo. Following Prime Minister Meidani, Deputy Prime Minister Meta also voiced the fears and suspicions of all the Albanians about the role Russia might play in Kosovo. The leader of the greatest opposition party Berisha, the president of the Albanian Parliament Gjinushi, the military adviser of the Albanian president Brokaj and others expressed themselves in the same forceful tone.

Albania¥s stand towards Russian policy and military aims in Kosovo was immediately followed even stronger opposition by the UCK. The UCK commander and head of the Provisional Government of Kosovo Hashin Thaci declared that the Russian troops that had entered Kosovo in contravention to the orders of the NATO command would be considered soldiers of an occupying power. They should clear out of Kosovo, otherwise the UCK disclaimed any responsibility for their security, Thaci said.

The stand taken by Tirana and the UCK brought a new element to the bilateral negotiations between the United States and Russia on the problem of Russian troops in Kosovo. Diplomatic sources have disclosed that the refusal of the Albanian Government and the UCK to accept a separate command of the Russian forces was also used as an additional argument at the protracted and difficult negotiations in Helsinki.

Russian President Yeltsin and his ministers Ivanov and Sergeyev, who spent five tiresome days of negotiations with their American counterparts on the question of Russian troops in Kosovo overlooked what the United States and NATO had understood right from the start: the conditions did not exist for the presence of their land troops in Kosovo. It took the United States and NATO seventy-nine days of bombing to prepare the terrain for the deployment of their land troops in Kosovo, but the Russian did not comprehend it. Only after their two hundred-strong contingent seized Prishtina airport did the Russians become aware of the situation. On June 19, only a week after their sudden entry into Kosovo¥s capital, meeting with strong opposition from UCK forces around the airport, the Russian called for help from the KFOR command.

While for the NATO troops the unfavourable environment meant the presence of Serb forces which, subjected to intensive bombing, eventually had to capitulate and pull out of Kosovo, for the Russian forces the unfavourable environment means the presence of the Albanian political and military factor, the Albanians of Kosovo, who make up 90 percent of its population. For reasons that can be easily understood, Tirana is able to exercise a strong psychological influence on the stance of the Albanian population of Kosovo, where the strained relations between Albania and Russia may also be reflected.

Albania occupies an important place in the plans of the United States and European Union for the post-war period and the reconstruction of Kosovo and the region, which cannot fail to have its repercussions in the definition of relations of the Great Powers with the region of South-eastern Europe. The cooling off of relations between Albania and Russia will weaken Russia¥s role and dampen its ambitions for a large-scale involvement in the region. At the conclusion of the Bonn G8 Summit, German Chancellor Schroeder declared that Russia, too, had a role in the plans for the reconstruction of South-eastern Europe. However, an economic, just as a military role, calls for a favourable environment, which for Moscow will not be too easy to achieve, because, to different degrees, in almost all the Balkan states there is an important Albanian population which carries weight in the economic life of this or that state. All the more important will be Albania¥s weight in what Albanian Prime Minister Majko is trying to achieve ¥ a common economic space that will include Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo and Montenegro.

The second split between Albania and Russia might lead to the weakening, if not neutralisation, of the Russian role and ambitions in South-eastern Europe. It will be difficult for Russia to mend fences, because this split also contains an important international element, which now more than ever Tirana feels obliged to defend. In the course of the war in Kosovo Russia did not understand that it was fighting for a lost cause. However, now that peace has been established, it will perhaps understand that its role in the Balkan should be commensurate with its actual power and take into account the very real problems it has in its own backyard.

Shaban Murati (AIM)