Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06MOSCOW10438
2006-09-19 12:31:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Moscow
Cable title:  

RUSSIA AND KOSOVO: THE POLITICS OF DELAY

Tags:  PREL PGOV KDEM UNMIK SR YI RS 
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 MOSCOW 010438 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/18/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM UNMIK SR YI RS
SUBJECT: RUSSIA AND KOSOVO: THE POLITICS OF DELAY

REF: STATE 148147

Classified By: Ambassador William J. Burns. Reasons: 1.4 (b, d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 MOSCOW 010438

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/18/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM UNMIK SR YI RS
SUBJECT: RUSSIA AND KOSOVO: THE POLITICS OF DELAY

REF: STATE 148147

Classified By: Ambassador William J. Burns. Reasons: 1.4 (b, d).


1. (C) Summary: Russia will seek to delay the conclusion
of the Kosovo status process beyond year's end, arguing that
a negotiated settlement will be more enduring than one forced
on Serbia. The GOR does not like UN Special Envoy
Ahtisaari's draft status recommendations and might balk at
agreeing to a statement following the September 20 Contact
Group Ministerial in New York. While experts here agreed
that Russia did not want status talks to end with an imposed
settlement, most also concluded that Russia would not block
such a decision because of broader geopolitical interests.
However, this view was not unanimous; one well-respected
observer thought it likely that Russia would veto any UN
Security Council resolution imposing a solution on Kosovo.
While the Russian Orthodox Church and nationalist politicians
plan a campaign to express their public opposition to
independence, observers believe mainstream domestic opinion
will follow the Kremlin's lead. Russia will continue to
argue that the Kosovo settlement will form a precedent for
resolving other frozen conflicts to capitalize on doubts
about the implications of Kosovar independence. End Summary.
.
MFA: THE PARTIES MUST AGREE
--------------


2. (C) The MFA's position on Kosovo status talks has been
consistent since the January 31 London Contact Group (CG)
Ministerial: opposition to "artificial deadlines" and "rigid
ultimatums," support for a negotiated settlement, and a new
emphasis on the Kosovo resolution as a precedent for other
frozen conflicts. Amb. Botsan-Kharchenko, Russia's Contract
Group representative, hewed closely to these lines in a
September 15 conversation with us before departing for the CG
Ministerial on the margins of UNGA. Confirming that FM
Lavrov will participate in the talks, Botsan-Kharchenko
underlined that Moscow had strong concerns about issuing a
statement following the ministerial because of differences

among CG members. Moscow does not like the current draft of
UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari's nonpaper providing
preliminary recommendations on Kosovo's future status. A
statement might be viewed as an endorsement of the nonpaper;
Lavrov will flag Russian concerns in a meeting with Ahtissari
immediately before the CG meeting.


3. (C) Foreshadowing a possibly contentious meeting in New
York, Botsan-Kharchenko said that Lavrov had underlined that
the Ministerial would finally provide an opportunity for a
serious discussion of next steps. Russia recognized the
importance of CG unity, but at the same time Moscow insisted
on the priority of finding a negotiated solution on status.
Reviewing Belgrade's and Pristina's positions in the talks to
date, he acknowledged they were far apart (while arguing that
Serbia had been more flexible),and said that more time was
needed for a compromise. He claimed that no one thought that
such a compromise would be possible by year's end and that
the CG should not insist on it. He would not be drawn out on
when he thought the process could be completed, arguing it
was more important that the results be mutually acceptable
than they be reached by a certain date, which might take
"years." Russia remained more comfortable with substantial
autonomy than independence, Botsan-Kharchenko stressed, and
was opposed to Kosovo's membership in international
organizations. He said that assistance from international
financial institutions could be made available to Kosovo
regardless of its status.


4. (C) Pointing to September 17 Transnistrian independence
referendum, Botsan-Kharchenko said the Kosovar's insistence
on independence was already having an effect on other frozen
conflicts. On Kosovo's value as a precedent in other
conflicts, he argued that the critical factor was whether a
change in status came about as the result of negotiations or
was imposed on a state.
.
SERBIAN CHARGE KURJAK: HANDWRITING ON THE WALL?
-------------- ---


5. (C) While Amb. Botsan-Kharchenko seemed intent on
demonstrating Russia's unwillingness to accept a "rush to
judgment," Serbian Charge d'Affaires Jelica Kurjak was
skeptical about GOR support for Serbia as the Kosovo end game
drew near. She told us she was not optimistic about Serbia's
chances to retain Kosovo and did not believe that Moscow
would endanger its relations with the U.S. and Europe to
block consensus on Kosovo's final status. According to
Kurjak, Botsan-Kharchenko had expressed pessimism to her over
Serbia's prospects for retaining Kosovo, noting western unity
in seeking independence by year's end. Russia, she said,
would maneuver for space, seek to exploit divisions within

MOSCOW 00010438 002 OF 004


the West over timing and highlight the potentially dangerous
political repercussions for Serbia of an independent Kosovo.
While it was possible that Russia might balk at an imposed
solution (Kurjak cited the 2004 Russian veto in the Security
Council of the Cyprus resolution as an example),the
relationship between Belgrade and Moscow had steadily eroded;
the GOR's support could not be counted on.


6. (C) Kurjak discounted the value of support from the
Duma, pan-Slav nationalists and the Russian Orthodox Church.
While they would all object to Kosovar independence, in the
end, they would fall into line behind the likely Kremlin
decision not to block a status decision. It was hard to live
on "old myths and stereotypes" of Slav unity when the two
states had grown apart. Serbia, she concluded, would fall
victim to the GOR's embrace of a pragmatic foreign policy
line. (Biographical Note: Kurjak, an academic, counts
herself a personal friend of the Serbian President and is
well-connected in Moscow. Kurjak alluded to GOR
dissatisfaction with her policy line toward Russia, which
culminated in its refusal to grant agrement this summer when
the GOS put forward Kurjak as the replacement for the
outgoing Ambassador. End Note.)
.
SHIFT IN PRIORITIES
--------------


7. (C) Many of the experts we spoke to agreed that while
Russia might seek to slow the process leading to Kosovo's
independence, Moscow would not block this from happening,
regardless of domestic public opinion. While Amb.
Botsan-Kharchenko claimed that Kosovo remained a potent
emotional symbol for the Russian public and was now back on
the domestic agenda, other interlocutors were dubious. Pavel
Kandel, an Balkans expert at the Institute of Europe, said
that Russian policy toward Serbia had significantly evolved
since the 1999 conflict; Moscow is no longer the "pro-Serb
fortress" of western imagination. He acknowledged that the
Russian public -- which is largely oblivious to most foreign
policy issues -- paid attention to Serbia, but thought that
public opinion would not play a role in decision making. To
the extent Russia had a Balkans policy, it was focused on the
region's role in the transit and consumption of oil and gas,
not on imperial nostalgia. Russia's relations with the U.S.
and the West, not old ties to Belgrade, would influence how
quickly Russia accepted the inevitability of Kosovo becoming
independent.
.
NO GUNS OF AUGUST
--------------


8. (C) Even if Russia wanted to help Serbia retain Kosovo,
it lacked the ability to do so, according to Aleksey
Bogaturov, Dean of International Politics at the Moscow State
Institute of International Relations (MGIMO),which is
affiliated with the MFA. The 1999 dash by Russian
peacekeepers for the Kosovo airport was the high-water mark
of support for Serbia. That turned out to be an ill-planned
and pathetic gesture. It felt good at home, showed the Serbs
that Russia wanted to help, but ultimately was an
embarrassment. It highlighted how little Russia could really
do, Bogaturov explained. Those troops were no longer in the
region, and Russia had no concrete way of helping the Serbs.
Russia had a history of giving moral support to Serbia but
little else. "We gave them real support in August 1914, and
it had a disastrous result on Russia," he said. Besides,
Bogaturov underlined, while the issue can at times strike an
emotional chord with some Russians, public opinion is not as
energized about Serbia as it was in 1999, during the height
of the NATO air campaign against Milosovic's regime. Russia
could help the Serbs after Kosovo gains independence,
Bogaturov explained. If there is a move among Kosovar Serbs
to separate from Kosovo and rejoin Serbia, Russia might lend
a political hand. Russia could also keep international
pressure on the Kosovar Albanians to protect Serb religious
sites in Kosovo, he said.
.
ORTHODOX CHURCH: A PUBLIC STAND
--------------


9. (C) While interest in the plight of the Serb minority in
Kosovo might no longer evoke the same emotional reaction it
did in 1999, some Russians are likely to object loudly and
publicly to a status process that leads to Kosovo's
independence. According to Father Vsevolod Chaplin, a
spokesperson for the Russian Orthodox Church's (ROC) Moscow
Patriarchate, religious organizations and elements of civil
society planned to draw renewed public attention to the issue
of Serbian and Orthodox rights in Kosovo. He singled out
Russian Railways CEO Vladimir Yakunin -- a close Putin friend
who is sometimes touted as a fall-back presidential candidate
in 2008 -- as a leader of opposition to an "illegal" division

MOSCOW 00010438 003 OF 004


of Serbia. (Yakunin has hinted at such a stance on Kosovo in
recent conversations with the Ambassador.) Chaplin also said
that a block of Duma members would raise questions about the
status process with FM Lavrov and others. He predicted that
October would see public rallies led by ROC and visiting
Serbian Orthodox Church officials as well as extensive and
positive media coverage from figures like Aleksey Pushkov, a
Kremlin-friendly talk-show host with Moscow's TV Tsentr.


10. (C) Chaplin said the Church was focused on the
protection of the Serb minority's rights and Orthodox
religious and cultural monuments in Kosovo. In his view, the
West was ignoring what was taking place to the Serbs in
Kosovo. He said Patriarch Aleksey II believed that the views
of all of Serbia needed to be taken into account in
determining Kosovo's status, not just of those who lived in
Kosovo. "Kosovo is for the Serbs like Jerusalem is for the
Jews," Chaplin said, and a failure to guarantee respect for
the Orthodox community in Kosovo would only lead to further
bloodshed. Chaplin said that the decentralization proposals
made so far were insufficient. While the weight of opinion
in the ROC was flatly opposed to any form of Kosovar
independence because of the lack of protection for Serbs,
Chaplin conceded that some saw a split as inevitable and
would support the retention of Serb areas of northern Kosovo
within Serbia while the remainder of Kosovo was subject to
continued international oversight.
.
TRENIN: ODD MAN OUT
--------------


11. (C) Unlike our other interlocutors, the Carnegie
Center's Dmitriy Trenin did not see Russia grudgingly going
along with Kosovo independence. In his view, Russia was
likely to invoke its Security Council veto on a Kosovo
resolution, motivated by the same considerations that drove
its Cyprus veto in 2004. While Putin has yet to make a
decision, Trenin believed that Russian policy would be driven
by Serbia. If Serbia arrived at a consensus with the
Kosovars, Russia would gladly accede to Kosovo,s
independence; however, he maintained, Russia was unlikely to
approve the imposition of independence. Like the others,
Trenin was skeptical about domestic considerations as an
important variable in this foreign policy issue: the Duma and
Church "will make noise and pretend that they are
representatives of the people, but when they are made to
understand the Kremlin,s decision, they will go along."
Trenin thought it was unlikely that the Kremlin would abstain
on an issue as important as Kosovo, simply because it was
unseemly for a "power" to behave in this matter on an issue
of international import.
.
WHAT KIND OF PRECEDENT?
--------------


12. (C) Since President Putin's January 31 press conference
remark asking rhetorically why South Ossetia and
Abkhazia could not be independent if Kosovo was given
independence, speculation has been rife about the specific
effect Putin's comment would have on Russia's Kosovo policy
as well as on its treatment of other frozen conflicts. The
MFA has told us multiple times that it was difficult to argue
that Kosovo was unique and that as a factual matter the
Kosovo decision would affect how leaders in other separatist
regions viewed their own futures. While some Russian
observers have been vague in explaining precisely what
precedent they would draw from Kosovo independence, diplomats
(including Amb. Botsan-Kharchenko) use the "precedent"
argument to underline that a negotiated settlement of Kosovo
between the parties would be a positive precedent for
resolving other frozen conflicts. The obverse -- that a
solution "imposed" on Serbia would in some fashion allow
other separatist regions to become independent -- does not
receive as much attention from the MFA.


13. (C) Experts we have talked to take very different views
on the "precedent" argument. MGIMO's Bogaturov said the GOR
might use the Kosovo issue as an opportunity to try to
legitimize the pro-Russian statelets of Abkhazia, South
Ossetia and Transnistria. Russia could take advantage of the
Kosovo issue to press the case of independence for these
regions, he said. After Kosovo gains independence, Russia
could start to change the way it talks about these areas.
"In the past, we have said we recognize the territorial
integrity of Georgia and Moldova," Bogaturov explained.
"After Kosovo leaves Serbia, we could say that these areas
have de-facto independence. It will be slow and deliberate,
but our position will change and we won't talk about
territorial integrity of Georgia and Moldova anymore." In
contrast, Carnegie's Trenin discounted GOR motivations to
seize upon Kosovo as a model for the frozen conflicts in
post-Soviet space. While Putin believed that Kosovo would

MOSCOW 00010438 004 OF 004


become a precedent, it is not one that he wants to invoke,
Trenin emphasized. Any change to the post-Soviet borders,
even in a territory as remote and insignificant as South
Ossetia, would render every post-Soviet border "conditional."
The prospect of instability was substantial. The GOR also
was concerned with future applications of a Kosovo model
against Russian territorial integrity.
.
COMMENT
--------------


14. (C) We expect the GOR to make every effort to slow down
the status process beyond the end of the year. The
"precedent" argument will continue to do double duty -- by
bolstering the Serbian case against independence and by
raising doubts about the broader implications of Kosovo
independence among members of the Contact Group and other
concerned states like Ukraine. This strategy has its own
limitations in the face of a determined push in the CG and,
in the end, Moscow will likely have to face the question of
whether to try to block Kosovo independence in the Security
Council. If Russia's 2004 veto of the Cyprus resolution
serves as a model, Moscow might wait until the eleventh hour
to reveal its intentions. With the 2007-2008 Russian
political season looming just ahead, it would be a mistake to
underestimate the temptation to veto in the Kremlin.
BURNS