Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti has made a reasonable proposal with regard to local elections in Serb-majority areas in Kosovo. On the suggestion of Western powers who had supported Kosovo breaking away from Serbia, Kurti said that he would withdraw the ethnic Albanian mayors elected in the Serb-majority areas because the Serbs had boycotted the elections. He has also agreed to downsize the Albanian security forces in these areas to create a conducive atmosphere for the elections.

Though the proposal looks tidy, its implementation would not be easy because there are enough provocations from both sides. Serbia had been playing the role of a watchdog in the Serb-majority areas inside Kosovo, and that does not make things easy. The Kosovar police had arrested a Serbian protestor, Milun Milenkovic, and in the scuffle three Kosovar policemen were injured. The Serbs described this as a provocative act by the Kosovars, and that Kurti’s offer was hollow.

And there is also the issues of hardened stances and deep prejudices which cannot be put away in a jiffy. It is this what makes any deal to be worked out a difficult task. There has been violence in the Serb-majority areas, and the Serb protesters had been attacking NATO patrols in the area. It is to protect the NATO patrols that the Kosovar authorities had been forced to deploy Kosovar police. That had only heightened tension.

Even after Kurti’s proposals, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that the Serb enclaves in Kosovo should be given greater autonomy before the elections are held. The problem remains that Serbia is not reconciled to the fact of an independent Kosovo, and there is an office for Kosovo in the Serbian government. There were protests among the Serbs in Kosovo when the Kosovar government wanted to end the Belgrade nameplates that the cars owned by Serbs carried.

If this is the situation, then there would be pinpricks every day and the little incidents of provocation can blow up into a bigger conflagration. There are two basic things that are required on the part of Kosovars and the Serbs. First, Kosovars must recognise that even as Western powers helped Kosovo to break away from Serbia because the Serbs were not willing to give autonomy to the Kosovars, it is necessary for Kosovars on their part to accept the fact that Serb-dominated areas should enjoy autonomy.  These things cannot be made to happen if there is grudge on the part of the Kosovars. They have to accept the fact of Serbian autonomy in Serb-majority areas wholeheartedly.

The Serbs in Kosovo will have to come round to the view that Kosovo is a separate state, and they – the Serbs – form a minority in the Kosovar-majority state. But extreme Serbian nationalists like Slobodan Milosevic refused to give in to the autonomy plea of Kosovars. In Kosovo, ninety per cent of the people were ethnic Albanians, and 10 per cent were ethnic Serbs. And Kosovars have to learn to respect the Serbs in their midst as an ethnic minority and it is the political obligation of the Kosovars to defend the minority rights of the Serbs in their midst.

Once the Kosovo state has been carved out, the 10 per cent Serbs can live on there as a minority. This is indeed the untidy position in every European country. There will never be a homogenous ethnic population in any country. Serbia cannot exert any rights on behalf of Serbs in Kosovo because then that would be an erosion of Kosovar sovereignty. But there persists the stubborn attitude that Kosovo is still assumed to be a southern province of Serbia. This attitude is incompatible with political reality.