By: Dragutin Nenezić
A little over a year ago, Donald Trump formally began his second term. In that year, a lot has happened, yet very little is truly understood. Instead of speculating about what Trump actually wants (there are many theories, but none have been confirmed so far), I would like here—as before—to focus on his impact on Kosovo, this time in light of topics I have not previously addressed: Gaza and Greenland. I aim to argue, with reasoned analysis, that the parallels being drawn in our public discourse are unfounded, and to once again reaffirm that nothing good can be expected from Trump when it comes to Kosovo—at least not for the Serbs.
The situation in Gaza is, at least from the UN’s perspective, very clear, yet also contradictory. On the one hand, we have the finding of an independent UN commission that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians there; on the other, we have UN Security Council Resolution 2803, which—something often overlooked in public debate—grants a mandate to the Peace Committee presented by Trump in Davos, with Vjosa Osmani prominently positioned behind him, dressed in red.
This is where things become interesting from Kosovo’s perspective. Through the back door, and to the best of my knowledge for the first time, Kosovo has become a member of a body with a UN mandate, regardless of European criticism that Trump has overstepped that mandate in his interpretation. At the same time, this development in Gaza effectively annuls the Oslo II Accords (and the idea of a two-state solution, one of which would be Palestinian), which separates Gaza from Kosovo, and even from Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is because both the Kumanovo and Dayton agreements, as contemporaries of Oslo II, remain in force—something indirectly confirmed by U.S. legislation, as I have already written about, and something parts of our public try to downplay through various arbitrary interpretations.
As the icing on the cake, the formation of the Peace Committee completes Trump’s efforts to bring Arab states and Israel closer together—an effort that, during his first term, was crowned by the signing of the so-called Abraham Accords, which can be seen as a counterpart to the so-called Washington Agreement.
In other words, even if things may appear otherwise, this is about a firm continuation of directions that have been visible for some time now. Trump’s vision for the Middle East has gained grounding in a UN Security Council resolution and now operates on two levels: the level of the Abraham Accords and the level of the Peace Committee. Kosovo, like Albania, is part of that institutional structure, unlike Serbia, which is left only to wait for an institutional upgrade of the Washington Agreement.
Given that Trump’s vision for the Middle East is complementary to the idea of Greater Israel—which denies the existence of a Palestinian state—it can be assumed, based on this membership, that a similar vision for the Balkans would be complementary to the idea of Greater Albania, which denies Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo.
At the same time, American diplomats are well aware of what Kosovo is and how it came into being—so much so that they openly state they will not allow the formation of a Kurdish Kosovo in “liberated” Syria.
As for Greenland, like the negotiations over Ukraine, it remains far from any clear solution. The outlines of a possible resolution now point more toward some form of collective security arrangement (including NATO) than toward annexation or purchase.
Although the possibility of Greenland being taken from Denmark provoked strong reactions in our public—partly because Denmark recognized Kosovo—there seems to be no room for that analogy. Still, there is space for a different kind of analogy with Kosovo, given that NATO’s largest peacekeeping mission is currently in Kosovo, and that Kosovo is part of the same collective security structure that is now being reinforced in Greenland. This structure also includes the announced production of drones in Kosovo, the planned joint unit with Albania, and the ongoing saga of arming Kosovo’s forces. Serbia, as it stands today, is not part of this structure.
Beyond the security angle, Greenland is also interesting from the perspective of how the Trump administration interprets international law. Thus, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, has stated that a state has a right to territory only if it can defend it. It appears that, even though he does not speak out much around Trump (unlike Vjosa Osmani), Kurti is aligned with this interpretation, judging by how he occupied northern Kosovo.
And since we are already talking about Kurti, he is spending the time until his inauguration planning the takeover of education and healthcare, postponing the implementation of freedom-of-movement regulations (which the international community is carefully monitoring—essentially the only thing it can or wants to do at this moment), and making progress in the Brussels negotiations. On almost the same day that Vjosa Osmani was on Trump’s “right side of history,” our delegation was negotiating in Brussels. That says enough about the real balance of power at the moment, while what lies ahead is sufficiently illustrated by the draft law on the Preševo Valley in the U.S. Congress.
I fear that Trump is not only not a Serb, but that he also has no pleasant plans for the Serbs. All that remains is to hear what those two formal requirements are for launching a strategic dialogue between Serbia and the United States.
All views expressed in this text are the author’s personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial board. KoSSev is not the author of this text.
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
