Some have argued that if Kurdistan can remain part of Iraq in a federal state, then Kosovo can remain part of Serbia as well. What is your opinion of this stance?

The deal between Kurdistan and Iraq is this: the president, foreign minister and deputy prime minister—as well as several other ministers—are Kurds. In addition, Kurdistan has its own military forces, and Iraqi military forces are not permitted on the territory of Kurdistan without permission of the Kurdistan Regional Government. The police in Kurdistan are entirely independent of Iraq’s police.

I doubt the Kosovo Albanians would accept such a deal, but the more important question is whether anyone in Belgrade would offer it. The answer is "no." To my knowledge, in the almost nine years since the UN and NATO took over Kosovo, no one in Belgrade has offered any incentive to the Kosovo Albanians to reintegrate into the Serbian state. And when it came time to pass a new constitution by referendum, Belgrade struck the Kosovo Albanians from the voter rolls, in order to ensure that 50 percent of registered voters would be counted as having voted, as required. Serbia does not want the Kosovo Albanians to remain inside Serbia; it wants sovereignty over the territory on which they live.

The eventual outcome in Kosovo is clear—internationally supervised sovereignty. The best way of getting to this outcome is a Security Council resolution, which would provide protection for the Kosovo Serbs, Russian approval and a firm legal basis for the European Union, while not requiring any agreement on Belgrade’s part.

I think there is in the aftermath of the Serbian elections a tremendous opportunity to revisit the question of a Security Council resolution that backs the plan that former Finnish President Ahtisaari prepared. The Ahtisaari plan provides for extensive protection of the Kosovo Serbs as well as Serbian churches and monuments, separate municipal governance for Kosovo Serbs and direct relations with Belgrade—in short, everything Belgrade asked for in terms of guarantees for the Kosovo Serbs. The Ahtisaari plan itself would not have determined Kosovo’s status, which it left up to individual states, but Ahtisaari made it clear in his transmission to the U.N. that he anticipated supervised sovereignty as the outcome.

The Russians have made it quite clear that they will follow Belgrade’s lead on this issue. This stance is unbecoming for a great power – it delegates a Security Council veto to another state. Moreover, it is in Russia’s interest that the decision on Kosovo’s status not be taken outside the Security Council, since that might set a precedent. Unfortunately, the Russians seem to have sold their veto in exchange for a good price for Serbia’s energy industries.

This is an unhappy situation but not an unmanageable one. I don’t expect it to deteriorate into violence. Both Serbs and Albanians seem determined to maintain peace and stability, despite hot heads on both sides who might like something else.

Belgrade has made it absolutely clear that it intends to maintain its de facto control over the North and some of the Serbian enclaves in the South of Kosovo. I expect that such control will continue until there is a gradual re-integration of those territories into a sovereign Kosovo.

I don’t expect that Belgrade will forever see the issue of Kosovo as more important than the issue of the EU. The recent election suggests that the majority of Serbs have already come to the conclusion that they value the EU more than Kosovo.

Serbian security forces are already deployed in the North of Kosovo and in the larger Serbian enclaves south of the Ibar River. It is possible that Belgrade will want to increase the number of agents it has deployed but it is likely that they will also want to keep them under cover, which is the situation today. NATO has been unwilling to challenge the Serb forces in Kosovo for almost nine years. I don’t expect them to start doing it now.

There’s a great deal of work that needs to be done to implement the Ahtisaari plan. Those in Kosovo who think that independence is a big party should remember that that’s not the way it works. There is a lot of responsibility involved here. The most immediate requirement is for the Pristina government to make it absolutely clear to the entire population of Kosovo that violence against Serbs and other minorities will not be tolerated.

A seat in the General Assembly is the ultimate certificate of sovereignty, which explains Serbia’s vehement resistance. As long as Serbia has in its pocket a Russian veto in the Security Council, Kosovo will not be able to take a seat in the General Assembly.

Serbia can expect EU membership much more quickly than Kosovo, provided it finds a way of reconciling itself to Kosovo sovereignty. It is a matter of a few years for Serbia, while Kosovo is likely to wait a decade or more. Even now, Belgrade can hope for visa-free travel for citizens of Serbia proper, a privilege not likely to be extended to Kosovars.

It was narrow but important. It suggests that a majority of Serbs want to move towards the EU, and I think it’s particularly significant that he seems to have been aided by a very high turnout, which is a sign of enthusiasm for the perspective he put forward. Nikolic was pro-Russian and Euro-skeptical.

Some in the international community will argue for a decent interval after Tadic’s re-election before proceeding with a decision on Kosovo’s status. But the delay is not likely to be more than a couple of weeks. I don’t think there will be any impact on the ultimate solution of supervised sovereignty. But there may be some delay while the Kosovars put a new constitution in place (as required by the Ahtisaari plan) and the Europeans get ready to deploy their Rule of Law mission, also a part of the plan.

My guess is that Kosovo’s independence will be a two-step process, beginning with a declaration of intent to declare independence after a transition period of 120 days, also provided for in the Ahtisaari plan.

It’s hard to tell. The president obviously wants to go one way, while I’m afraid that Kostunica and the government want to go another. This is an issue for the Serbian institutions to resolve.

What I would like to see is people in Serbia thinking harder about what ultimately is in their best interest. Is holding on to Kosovo going to improve Serbia’s prospects for getting into the EU? Is holding on to Kosovo but eliminating Kosovars from the voter rolls in Serbia going to help Serbia consolidate its democracy? Is keeping the issue of Kosovo open going to help Serbia modernize?

Not really. The logic of Tadic’s position is that the EU is the first priority. Serbs have to decide what’s more important—Kosovo or the EU. Tadic won the election by the narrowest of margins, but he won it.

Kostunica isn’t going away, and the Radicals are well-ensconced in the state-owned industries. The fact is that there is very broad agreement in Serbia over maintaining sovereignty over Kosovo. Tadic agrees with that position as well.

The question is what the Serbs they going to do about it at this point. I think that they know where things are headed, and that, as time passes in a year or two, people will begin to wonder what all the fuss is about. In the end, I think Serbia will move to the E.U. much faster with Kosovo detached rather than attached.

Certainly a government crisis is possible. And there will be some European countries that will argue for further delay. But I think most of Europe and the U.S. are committed to moving ahead, knowing well that further delay will only increase the likelihood of violence and instability.

Americans are happy the elections were conducted well, efficiently, and fairly. Serbia has consistently undertaken good elections since the fall of Miloslovic, a testament to the strength of the country’s institutions.

Tadic has a lot of sympathy in Washington. Nikolic presented problems for the U.S. because he sought to turn Serbia in the Russian direction and was less enthusiastic about the E.U. and Western institutions than Tadic. Kostunica basically has sided with Nikolic.

There are many who would like to sweep the issue of war criminals under the carpet, but fortunately there are some in Europe—right now the Dutch—who refuse to forget that the Serbian government appears still to be protecting Ratko Mladic. The Dutch have been holding up signature of Serbia’s Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU over this issue.

Nor should Americans forget: we have done everything possible to normalize relations with Serbia and even allowed Serbia into Partnership for Peace—NATO’s non-member circle—despite the continuing failure to fulfill its obligations to the tribunal in The Hague. It is more than time that we got as serious as the Dutch.

Serbia seems to have sold its energy resources cheaply to the Russians in order to ensure Moscow’s intransigence in the Security Council. A shabby bit of business in my view, and one that Serbs are likely to regret.

I think this is it. There will be some who will want to reopen the question of Republika Srpska in Bosnia, and others who might want to reopen the question of the Albanian-majority municipalities in Northwestern Macedonia. But the international community will reject both propositions.

Remember though: the map will change—at least in some functional respects—as Serbia and later Kosovo develop stronger relations with the EU. Ultimately, there will be an unguarded border between Kosovo and Serbia, once again, but only in the context of EU membership.

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of USIP, which does not advocate specific policy positions.