Kosovo: Minority Rights Versus Independence‪.‬

The issue of minority rights versus independence is of interest today given the fact that many states are confronted with minority issues that in some cases involve armed separatist movements seeking independence. The manner of resolving the Kosovo (1) issue will by no means be an exception. On the contrary, it will function as a model for resolving similar issues in a regional and international framework, especially since this model will be one sanctioned and implemented by the Security Council of the United Nations. What is at stake is the principle of sovereignty and territorial integrity of member states, some of which are confronted with armed separatist movements and terrorism seeking to achieve independence rather than minority rights. In a strong and stable political framework such as the European Union, the questions of Northern Ireland, the Pais Basco, and Cyprus are fairly controlled and declining. However, the issue of the Kurds in Turkey and its neighbors seems less so, and as we move further east there is a long list of cases involving not only political action but also varying degrees of violence: Chechnya, Ossetia, Nagomo-Karabakh, Kashmir, Tibet... Whether the United Nations should assume the power and responsibility of invalidating the principle of territorial integrity of its member states and redrawing international borders is a question that directly affects Serbia today; however, it may affect other states in the future. Furthermore, taking away Serbian territory in order to establish an independent Kosovo means that there would be not one, but two Albanian states-Kosovo and Albania--sharing a common border and with all probability seeking to unite into a future "greater Albania." It would come as no surprise if someone then posed the question regarding Macedonia, a state in which the ethnic Albanians, concentrated in the Western part of the country adjacent to Kosovo, comprise 25% of the total population (compared to 16% of the population of Serbia).