Thursday, 21 February 2008

The Kosovo Fallout

See here on the global protests against the UDI in Kosovo; the opposition of Serbia's Albanians, Muslims and Roma; the plan by the German Left to sue Merkel for her illegal recognition; the Slovakian description of Kosovo as a Mafia state; the precendent set, and the reaction to it from Transnistria and the Basques; and much else besides.
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6 comments:

  1. Anonymous22 February 2008 at 14:33

    Interesting question for you David, what is your view on Nagorno-Karabakh? Do you back the secession of Christian Armenians from the rule of Muslim Turkic Azerbajanis?

    Interestingly Russia whilst it has threatened to recognise Transdinister, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, they have not done so for Nagorno-Karabakh.

    Nothing to do with upsetting the Turks who can make life difficult for Russia by restricting Russian shipping and trade via the Turkish straits. You have written that Putin is the new Soborski. Not when it comes down to the Turkish Straits he ain't.

    Also interestingly, when I have debated Kosovo with Serbian ultra-nationalists (not nationalists but the uber kind), they have been supportive, regardless of whatever happens to Kosovo, of the independence of Transdinister. Pan-Slavism and all that. A notion squashed in much of Europe at the shipyards of Gdansk and literally under tank wheels in Prague and Bratislava.

    For my part I would be quite happy to see Transdinister go its own way since it is a de facto state anyway. The Ukrainians have already re-routed their trains so they go straight to Moldova so their rolling stock is not sanctioned to border checks by the Transdinister militia.

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  2. David Lindsay22 February 2008 at 18:05

    Well, you'll get what you want now. Absolutely anywhere can now declare itself a state and expect US/EU recognition.

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  3. Anonymous22 February 2008 at 18:34

    The Muslims are against? The Roma I can understand. They certainly don't want Holocaust-deniers whose nostalgia for the SS extends all the way to wearing black shirts. But the Muslims?

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  4. David Lindsay22 February 2008 at 18:53

    Spared Izetbegovicisation by being in Serbia, I expect. So still like (most) Balkan Muslims used to be. Because they are in Serbia.

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  5. Anonymous25 February 2008 at 09:42

    Yes David, but where do your sympathies lie - Christian Armenians or the Muslim Shia Turkic Azeris whose army has Turkish "military advisers".

    Where next will the Turkish sphere extend to. They are bonded by blood and culture to every central asian republic apart from Tajikistan. Should the Turk be stopped from founding an oil rich transcaspian protectorate or in your view quasi-caliphate?

    The Azeris say that Nagorno-Karabakh is the cultural birthplace of their people. Should it be taken away from them just as the cultural birthplace of the Serbs was taken away from them?

    The Yanks have never recognised NK because of the Turks (NATO, the Straits etc) despite the strength of the Armenian vote, particuarly in California. Only Armenia proper recognises NK and NK has an embassy in Yerevan.

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  6. David Lindsay26 February 2008 at 18:42

    What are the Armenians trying to escape in Nagorno-Karabakh? There are several thriving Armenian churches in Tehran. There is none in Ankara or Istanbul.

    Azeris are, as you say, Shi'ites. So they are unlikely satellites of the emerging Turkish Super-Caliphate, which presumes even to re-write the Hadith.

    But if the agenda are Turkic rather than (or even just more than) Islamic, then Armenians have obvious cause for alarm, especially since Tukey still denies ever having committed genocide against them.

    So, which is it?

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