PREVIEW: Clinton targets key issues in Balkans tour

By Thomas Brey Oct 10, 2010, 12:40 GMT

Belgrade - US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is targeting two key problems in her tour this week of Bosnia- Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo.

In the three-day visit starting Monday, Clinton will head first to Bosnia-Herzegovina to help push the country on its constitutional reforms, an issue which has kept the state in deadlock for years.

In Serbia and Kosovo, she will be pressing hard to get the two sides to the negotiating table to resolve their differences.

The timing of the tour in Bosnia, coming after the elections a week ago, is regarded as a favourable moment to try to overcome the deadlock between Muslims, Serbs and Croatians.

Among the Muslim majority, the dogmatic top politician Haris Siladjzic was voted out and replaced by the more moderate Bakir Izetbegovic.

On the other side, Serb strongman Milorad Dodik was returned to office, and is pushing his programme of ending Bosnia-Herzegovina as a state by splitting the Serbian region off.

Over the past few years the US and European Union have launched many unsuccessful attempts to help Bosnia-Herzegovina remain a functional state by means of constitutional reform.

Besides the largely autonomous Serbian half of the country, the Muslims and Croatians jointly control the other half. The two sides work at cross-purposes, keeping the country in a deadlock.

Under the proposed constitutional reforms, the central state consisting of government, police, and the judiciary is to be strengthened. But this is rejected by the Serbian side.

In Belgrade, Clinton is expected in the behind-closed-doors session to demand that Serbia exert pressure on the Serbs in Bosnia to change their stance and approve the constitutional changes.

But it remains questionable whether she will succeed. US Vice President Joe Biden failed on precisely this issue during his visit to Sarajevo and Belgrade in May 2009.

Besides that question, the main issue Clinton will address in Belgrade and then in Kosovo is to seek a resumption of negotiations between the two sides.

The US and EU hope talks can still be launched this year to cover practical differences concerning securing the borders, energy supplies, transport issues, recognition of academic qualifications and combating cross-border crime.

Serbia, for its part, will insist on bringing up the issue of the legal status of its former province which unilaterally declared independence in February 2008, a move which Belgrade refuses to recognize.

For the US and EU, the issue of Kosovo's independence, however, is a closed matter.

For its part, Kosovo is seeking to delay holding talks with Serbia, pointing to upcoming early parliamentary and presidential elections. The Americans and Europeans fear that in this case, the prospects of getting the two sides talking again could become bogged down.