The German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger is inspired by the model of  the history of the two German states before their reunification: as he explains, the negociation process about Kosovo is at a standstill, and needs action, because he considers that "the two parts -serbian and albanian- have irreconcilable positions". Vecernje novosti, a Serbian daily newspaper, wonders: "the question is to know if W. Ischinger is just making  experiments or if he seriously intends to divide Serbia like the Americans and the Soviet Union did for Germany".

The Serbian newspaper Politika puts the stress on the fact that "the German mediator's proposal leads the way to the State for Serbian province". The idea being that Serbia and Kosovo would organise their relations like two states, as it happened for the two German states. It is chiefly for this reason that Belgrade refused the proposal, and that Pristina still hasn't given an official answer.

Ischinger isn't inspired by the fall of the Berlin wall, which marked the reunification of Germany, but by what happened 20 years before, on December the 21st 1972: the "Basic treaty" that normalized relationships between GDR and FRG, signed in Berlin after a year of difficult negociations.

The "Basic treaty" negociated between the two German states contains ten short articles. The elements of this normalization are: the developement of a normal relationship on neighbourly terms, based on equal rights – each side making a commitment to renounce to any form of violence ; the inviolability of common boundaries and the respect of territorial integrity; the shared renounciacion to intend to represent the other State on an international scale; and finaly,  a permanent interchange of representation.

It allowed the two States to be admitted together into the United Nations (UN) on September the 18th 1973. Israël only stood against the international recognition of the GDR. This was the first moment when the possibility of reunifying the two German states was brought up. The treaty was a de facto –but not de jure- guarantee of the recognition of the GDR. The de jure recognition, spelled out by law, is definitive, full and complete, which means that it produces all the juridic effects of recognition. Whereas the de facto recognition is provisional and revocable.

This is how Berlin became a major symbol of the Cold War. At a time when the newspaper announces the emergence of a new Cold War between the Americans and the Russians, what W. Ischinger's proposal principally unveils is the state of the relationships between the two main powers. Besides, the fact that it is not clearly said that the troika met or not –as it was announced- can let us think that there is an important disagreement between the three mediators, that is to say between the EU representative Wolfgang Ischinger, Franck Wisner for the US and Alexandre Bocan-Hartchenko for Russia.


Snejana Jovanovic / www.kosovo.over-blog.net

Translation : Alessia Bertoli