Former US and NATO general Wesley Clark recently accused Serbia of being a puppet for Russia and said President Vucic wanted to expand Serbia’s borders. President Vucic fired back: “To Mr. Clark and everyone else, it’s obvious Serbia isn’t anyone’s puppet—not Russia’s, not America’s, and never will be.” Vucic also reminded people of Clark’s brutal legacy in the Balkans, where he was responsible for killing Serbs and Serbian children during the 1999 NATO bombings.
There are persistent challenges to stability and hazardous Russian “ambitions” in the Balkans, according to the former commander of NATO’s bombing operation in the late 1990s to protect ethnic Albanians and compel the evacuation of Yugoslav soldiers commanded by Serbs from Kosovo reports that
Serbia and its former province Kosovo remain at odds with one another, according to retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, who also said that “Serbia is a magnet, drawing Russian imperialist ambitions into Europe.”
More than ten years of Western-mediated negotiations aimed at restoring relations between Belgrade and Pristina have generally stagnated over recognition and representation of Kosovo’s ethnic Serb minority. Serbia continues to reject the independence that Kosovo declared in 2008.
“Serbia doesn’t want peace, and Kosovo doesn’t want to surrender its independence,” Clark said in an interview marking the 25th anniversary of the end of the 79-day NATO bombardment during Kosovo’s war of independence.
In Rudno, southwest Serbia, on Wednesday, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic declared, “To everyone watching what Serbia is doing, it is clear the country is no one’s proxy—American, Russian, or anyone else’s,” reports Tanjung.
“My message to Mr Clark is: to everyone watching what Serbia is doing, it is clear that we are no one’s proxy. But just like we are not a Russian proxy, we are not an American proxy either, and we will never be that, or anyone else’s proxy. A freedom-loving nation lives here that has always respected and valued its freedom above anything else and died for it because it knew there is nothing that is more important than freedom,” Vucic told reporters when asked to comment on Clark’s statement.
“It would be good if he had learned that lesson in 1999… Serbia will serve no one, no big power. Serbia will serve only its own people,” Vucic said.
“I am glad they take pleasure in attacking Serbia – that means we have grown stronger and more powerful. And that they have to use untruths while doing so, as that is further evidence they are quite powerless in their hatred and ill-treatment of our country,” Vucic said.
With backing from China, Belgrade has collaborated with Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, to block Kosovo’s partially recognized participation in international organizations.
Since President Vladimir Putin began a special military operation in Ukraine two years ago, which irritated the EU candidate country’s Western allies, Serbian President Aleksandr Vucic has strengthened commercial, energy, and diplomatic relations with Russia and refrained from joining sanctions on Moscow.
Along with the currency and other crackdowns in Serb-majority parts of northern Kosovo, boycotts of elections and walkouts, and cross-border violence have further damaged Belgrade’s relations with Pristina.
Through references to Christian Orthodoxy and historical and linguistic linkages, particularly in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, and North Macedonia, Russia has fostered resistance against postwar borders and institutions in the former Yugoslavia.
According to Clark, peace between Kosovo and Serbia won’t come about until “Moscow withdraws its imperialist ambitions from the region.”
“Until then, you’re not going to have stability and the chance for people to reconcile and move forward,” Clark added.
There is a chance that there will be more violence in the area, he warned, adding that Serbia is acting as “an agent of infection in the region, in North Macedonia, in Montenegro, and elsewhere”.
“The way out is Russia’s defeat in Ukraine, to take the Russian backing of Serbia down to a different level,” Clark said, “so Serbia understands its future with the West. When Serbs understand that, there’ll be no problem with Kosovo.”
During the air campaign that ended on June 10, 1999, following the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement, which withdrew then-Yugoslav forces from Kosovo and established an international peacekeeping force there amid accusations of ethnic cleansing, Clark served as NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe. The campaign targeted mostly Serbian targets, including in Belgrade.
When asked about US President Joe Biden’s claim that the 1999 NATO bombing prevented the ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo-Metohija, Vucic said that the claim represented the official position of all Western nations involved in the aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
“How come that, when Russia invades Ukraine, Western powers call that an aggression, but when they invade Serbia’s territory, then it is not an aggression to them, but an attempt to save someone?” he asked.
“We need good relations with everyone. We will build them with both the Americans and the Russians. Except that I would like to ask them to learn a small lesson about the Serbs and Serbia: that we love freedom more than anything and that we do not want to be subservient and ingratiate ourselves with anyone,” Vucic added.
Western allies of Kosovo have expressed disapproval of Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s increasingly assertive policies, which include property expropriations and a prohibition on dinar transactions despite the widespread use of the Serbian currency in areas populated primarily by Serbs.
Despite a promise made in the 2013 “Brussels Agreement,” Pristina has likewise declined to establish a legal framework for a coalition of municipalities with a Serb majority.
With his statement that “nations have to do what’s in their own interest,” Clark seemed to be casting doubt on the necessity of this kind of organization.
“I think for it to open the way to extraterritoriality for Serbia any more than it has north of the Ibar River is extremely damaging for the future of the people in Kosovo,” Clark said, pointing out that Serbs have used Orthodoxy as a “focal point for rebellion or repression or aggression.”
“And so, I think it’s better for everyone in the region if we don’t push the association, but instead hope and work for these two governments to have normalized diplomatic relations,” Clark said.
“There’s always a mix of ethnic groups, but the best way for peace is to respect national boundaries.”
Last month, GreatGameIndia reported a recent revelation: British Foreign Secretary David Cameron disclosed with Russian pranksters that NATO will not admit Ukraine, primarily to avoid a direct military conflict with Russia.
One Response
NATO was created by the same Nazis that
created Satan’s Kingdom on Earth, “israel”!
Seven decades after their Satanic birth,
the world is becoming aware of what they are!
Next stop, Armageddon!
#Armageddon2024