INITIATIVE: General Zdravko Ponoš and American officers;...
NATO has taken note, the President of Serbia and the Chief of the General Staff have explained what Belgrade is asking/proposing, Pristina is angry and local military-political commentators are mostly satisfied.
General Zdravko Ponoš suggested to the commander of NATO's southern wing that the Kumanovo Agreement be revised; he announced it last week. The President of Serbia, Boris Tadić, immediately supported the initiative.
A bit more broadly: the two-day Brussels meeting of the heads of foreign affairs of NATO members was aware of Serbia's initiative to revise the Kumanovo Agreement of June 9, 1999, but it is not on the agenda of the current meeting, which is dedicated to the deployment of EULEX in Kosovo, the consequences for KFOR forces and the problem survival of the remains of UNMIK.
...Patrol in the area of land responsibility
When asked whether the ministerial session will discuss the demands of Serbian President Boris Tadic and Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces General Zdravko Ponoš to review the regime of the security zone around Kosovo, NATO's answer is: "for now, there are no changes." NATO is familiar with raising the issue of the possibility of renegotiation or harmonization of the military-technical agreement, but in the Alliance "there was no discussion, no evaluation or decision about it", said NATO spokesman James Appathurai.
The Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Zdravko Ponoš then repeated that ten days ago, in a conversation with senior NATO military officials, he initiated the revision of the Kumanovo Agreement - but that this is a short period in which the opinion can be heard at the ministerial level of NATO . Ponoš suggested that the process of revision of the agreement should start with expert discussions of both sides about what would make sense to change and what would be militarily based and acceptable to both sides. The initiative to revise the agreement according to which the army and police of the FR Yugoslavia left Kosovo in June 1999 came about because KFOR entered the process of building the "Kosovo Security Forces", which Serbia opposes, and because of the decision to deploy the EULEX mission in Kosovo. with the consent of Serbia. According to Ponoš, the creation of Kosovo's security forces does not pose a threat to Serbia, but the formation of an armed formation that is not allowed under any regional and international agreement does pose a threat.
ZONE AND UNDERSTANDING: Montenegrin part "solved";...
In June 1999, the Kumanovo Agreement was welcomed by the then opposition (the current government) as an unconstitutional capitulation of the country (the then FR Yugoslavia) to the NATO aggressor, i.e. as a historic victory over the strongest military alliance in the world (the then government, and now a coalition partner in the government). Immediately after the signing of the agreement, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1244, which is still today the only indisputable argument of Serbia in defense of territorial integrity. By the way, if anyone has forgotten, the text of the Kumanovo Military Technical Agreement was delivered to Slobodan Milošević personally by Marta Ahtisaari.
In addition to opening the door to the entry of NATO ground forces into Kosovo and Metohija, the Kumanovo Agreement also introduced land and air security buffer zones on the territory of Serbia: 5 and 25 kilometers in which the Serbian army and police have nothing to search, unless they are told to approved by the commander of the NATO forces from Pristina.
...Boris Tadić and Jaap de Hop Schefer
The matter worked for a short time: at the beginning of 2001, the Liberation Army of Bujanovac, Preševo and Medveđa began to operate - using the "no man's land" of the terrestrial security zone as a safe haven not only for actions in Serbia, but also to help a similar and ethnically fraternal liberation army in Macedonia. Faced with the scale of the conflict in Macedonia, NATO then approved the actions of the Serbian army and police in the land security zone - very gradually and only step by step. It was successful, as the no-fly zone was narrowed at the beginning of the summer of 2001, and the army and police were allowed to set up checkpoints and bases. Let's remember: at that time, the two Nebojšas, "Marshal" Čović and Chief of the General Staff Pavković, were fighting in the media. The operation to take control was successfully led by General Ninoslav Krstić without many public appearances. Then - at the suggestion of Nebojsa Pavković, with the signature of the then president of the FRY, Vojislav Koštunica - he was replaced, that is, "returned to his previous position". That detail can now be read as bizarre, but at the beginning of 2001, it was one of the important elements of the reckoning within the victorious Democratic Opposition of Serbia.
Today, the arguments of Boris Tadić and Zdravko Ponoš are strong: there is no reason not to change the agreement from 1999, considering that Serbia has meanwhile shown that it is a factor of stability in the region, said Tadić. General Zdravko Ponoš discussed the revision of the Kumanovo Agreement in Naples with the commander of the joint NATO forces, Mark Fitzgerald: "I asked for and somehow received the support of Admiral Fitzgerald to approach the revision of the Kumanovo Agreement at an expert level, that is, to review what can be changed there." , because it is inappropriate to the current situation on the ground."
It is not impossible that NATO will reward Belgrade's cooperation in accepting the EULEX mission with some concessions, even with Zdravko Ponoš's repeated statements in recent weeks that cooperation with KFOR on the ground began to "cool down" with the declaration of Kosovo's independence, and that further "cooling down" is ahead. , not only because of KFOR's role in the formation of the armed/security forces of Kosovo, but also because of the announced narrowing of activities from violence prevention to - "deterrence".
