Macedonia

George Soros is a Weasel.

As are so many of these creatures who use plausible deniability about their 'stated' intentions and viewpoints versus the actual results -- which are, of course, always the opposite of whatever they declare are their intentions. What a lot of Poppy-cock non-sense.

And adding insult to injury, they don't even care if anyone believes what they say. It doesn't matter to them that we know they are downright lying through their little lizard teeth.

Proposal: I'm thinking we need a new sort of ZOO. Where we can place all the psychos. And they can pace their cages and growl and nash their teeth and be bored out of their skulls. And we can toss them GMO foods and fluoridated water with lead in it . . . and I could go on and on and on. And for once, we could have some fun -- to see them for what they truly are -- which is powerless and impotent and useless. And maybe we would wake up to the fact that the only power they have is what we grant them. Their very nature is basically bloated nothingness. Bah! OK. Sorry for the rant. This isn't the Swamp Board.
 
The majority of Macedonian parliament's lawmakers voted on Tuesday to reject the impeachment of President Gjorge Ivanov, local media reported.

Macedonian Parliament Votes Against President Impeachment
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160621/1041707611/macedonia-impeachment-vote-parliament.html

A total of 47 lawmakers voted against the motion, while 35 supported the impeachment, the Macedonian Nova television channel said.

Lawmakers from the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), together with supporters from other opposition parties, submitted a proposal to the parliament to hold a vote on Ivanov’s impeachment in April, after his decision to terminate investigation against 56 governmental officials involved in a wiretapping scandal.

The calls to suspend the country's president continued despite the withdrawal of pardons by Ivanov.
 
Colorful Revolution takes a soft coup to install SDSM in the government

http://vecer.mk/makedonija/sharenata-revolucija-izveduva-mek-drzhaven-udar-za-da-go-instalira-sdsm-vo-vlasta

For Balkan Silk Road to evolve into a cross regional north-south corridor that would connect the vast space between Piraeus and St. Petersburg in order to speed up EU accession must pass through Macedonia,making it so this small country disproportionately important in global strategic Affairs which explains why the US pays much attention to destabilize, says American journalist Andrei Koribko.
 
Macedonia will hold early parliamentary elections in December. The move has been agreed upon by the country’s four main parties as a means of ending the country’s protracted political crisis.

Macedonia's Main Political Parties Agree to Hold Snap Elections
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160723/1043514869/macedonia-parties-elections.html

The Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE), the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) and the Democratic Party of Albanians (PDSH) now have until August 31 to decide whether elections can be held before the end of December.

The preliminary deal, announced by US Ambassador to Macedonia Jess Baily, inspires hope that the Balkan nation’s more than yearlong political strife can finally be resolved.

In an interview with Sputnik Danko Maleski, a professor of international law at Skopje, said that the fact that the deal was announced by the US envoy should be taken very seriously.

“The US and the European Union closely coordinate their positions on resolving the Macedonian crisis, but while Europe remains split on the issue, the American policy is coordinated from a single center, that’s why its position is stronger,” Danko Maleski said.

He agreed that this was good news for Macedonia, but feared that it would hardly be able to change anything.

“From a political point of view, Macedonia has been in a limbo for quite some time now. People need a chance to speak their mind in legitimate and honest elections. It still inspires hope but it still remains to be seen how our political parties agree on voting lists, etc.,” he added

He also feared that the sticking points at the heart of the current crisis, namely the abuse of power by members of the ruling VMRO-DPMNE party of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski who stepped down last January in the run-up to early election, would not be properly addressed.

“We need a fair resolution of contentious issues. If this does not happen, the crisis will not go anywhere even if we have these snap elections in December, because we are talking about the future of Macedonia as a law-governed state.”

He also warned against a situation when all those enmeshed in criminal affairs appear on the voting lists. “This would complicate the situation even more,” Professor Maleski emphasized.

The political crisis in Macedonia erupted after allegations that the government of then-Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski had illegally wiretapped opposition politicians, judges, and other members of the country’s political elite.

Whether the United States succeeds in doing what the EU has failed to accomplish and the effect this could have on Macedonia’s future policy is hard to say.

If Washington’s involvement is a continuation of its support for the Macedonian opposition intended to undermine Russia’s influence, then the current political crisis will only deepen after the December elections. In other words, if the US-backed parties win, Washington will have another “satellite” in the region.
 
Interesting text that reveals how major intelligence agencies operate in Macedonia and the whole Balkan. And of, course their main goal is " evil Russia".

_http://www.balkanalysis.com/blog/2016/07/23/italian-security-in-the-mena-and-balkans-part-3-misadventures-in-macedonia/
 
angelburst29 said:
Macedonia will hold early parliamentary elections in December. The move has been agreed upon by the country’s four main parties as a means of ending the country’s protracted political crisis.

Macedonia's Main Political Parties Agree to Hold Snap Elections
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160723/1043514869/macedonia-parties-elections.html


Macedonia: Technical Government to Be Elected Friday, Election Campaign to Start November 20

http://www.independent.mk/articles/36034/Macedonia+Technical+Government+to+Be+Elected+Friday%2C+Election+Campaign+to+Start+November+

After two postponements, Macedonia will finally hold early parliamentary elections on December 11. Elections are supposed to end the biggest political crisis since the country's independence.

Even though at Wednesday's negotiations SDSM tried to obstruct the deal again, VMRO-DPMNE leader Nikola Gruevski suprisingly accepted all of Zoran Zaev's demands and thus put him in a situation which he cannot escape.

Gruevski accepted the methodology for media monitoring, the election of Santa Argirova for editor in chief of the state broadcaster and he left SDSM and DUI to agree on the fifth member of the ad hoc media body.

After Gruevski left the leader meeting, SDSM and DUI took over 5 hours to appoint Ljuljzim Haziri the fifth member of the ad hoc media body, which was the only remaining issue to be settled.

Gruevski then returned to the meeting and along with the other 3 leaders signed the agreement for holding elections on December 11. It contains several conditions that need to be fulfilled in order for elections to take place.

The technical government, including SDSM ministers is supposed to be elected Friday. According to announcements, it will include the same ministers and additional ministers that were part of the government conforming to the Przino Agreement. Their election will be confirmed at Thursday's meeting of the party's central committee.

There is doubt that SDSM might not agree to participate in elections because of Zaev's statement in which he directly links participation in elections with SPO operation, even though its functioning is not an issue.

Starting on Friday, the deadlines for elections will start. Parliament will elect the technical government which will again be headed by Emil Dimitriev. At 60 days before elections, Parliament will dissolve, and the election campaign will start on November 20.


 

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VP Biden was campaigning with Killery in the State of Pennsylvania just before he left on his trip to Serbia for a three day visit. Pennsylvania is considered "a swing State" and can go either way in the election. Up to this point, Thump is still leading - so Biden needed to give a helping hand to boost her ratings. It seems any where Biden goes, in a few short weeks, there is trouble brewing somewhere close? Vojvodina seems to be the target of conflict?

In the Wake of Biden’s visit: Serbia at a geopolitical crossroads
http://katehon.com/article/wake-bidens-visit-serbia-geopolitical-crossroads

US Vice President Joseph Biden recently completed a “three day visit to Serbia” from august 16th-18th. The phrase in parentheses is the spin that Serbia’s puppet government in Belgrade put on it. He actually spent only a couple of hours in Belgrade, just enough to deliver instructions. From there he flew off to Pristina to spend the bulk of his time on NATO-occupied Serbian territory in the province of Kosovo with his real friends, who were put in charge as a result of the 1999 aggression against Yugoslavia.

It is assumed that Biden’s visit will be the last to the Balkans by a senior Obama Administration official, so it may be of more than passing significance. What kind of message did Biden bring to Serbia and the occupied province of Kosovo?

The state-sponsored revival of ultra-nationalismin Croatia is a danger to all of Europe, but its most immediate victim stands to once again be the Serbian people. This vicious ideology has been creeping to the forefront of official Croatian politics for years already, having burst out like a demon in the 1990s but intentionally put on ice during the 2000s while the country went through the process of joining the EU. Now that they’re a solid member of both that bloc and NATO, Croatian ultra-nationalists have a free hand to run wild with their fascist fantasies and rehabilitate internationally recognized criminals as so-called ‘national heroes’.

Croatia Wants To Hatch Hybrid War Violence In Vojvodina
http://katehon.com/article/croatia-wants-hatch-hybrid-war-violence-vojvodina

Geopolitical Timing Croatia’s accelerated socio-ideological degeneration is taking place in the context of continuously tense intra-federal relations within Bosnia and amidst the Macedonians’ second victory against the US’ Hybrid War aggression against them, the latter aim of which was to sabotage the future route of Russia and China’s multipolar megaprojects of the Balkan Stream gas pipeline and Balkan Silk Road high-speed railway. The timing of this development therefore cannot be seen by any responsible observer as merely being a random occurrence, especially because of the visibly high level of state backing for the neo-Ustasha movement.

This is a deliberate policy on behalf of the upper echelon of the Croatian leadership, which at this moment is represented by former Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy at NATO Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, the current President of Croatia. Being an expert in information warfare and ideological manipulation, she knew exactly which moves her government had to make in order to most efficiently speed up the country’s fascist revival, and judging by all present indicators, her policies have been a stunning ‘success’ thus far. The reason that they were encouraged to proceed with such urgency is because the US no longer has as much of a chance at destabilizing the Republic of Macedonia as it did last year, and accordingly, the subversion of the Central Balkans must move northwards in response.

International Implications
Bosnia: The situation in Bosnia is always unstable by the very nature of the state’s artificial composition and internationally enforced unity, but it’s lately been getting direr as Sarajevo played its hand in revealing its unstated intention to gradually dismantle Republika Srpska’s sovereignty. This plot has yet to succeed, but it’s importantly been exposed and all Serbs are aware of it, just as they are of Croatia’s return to state-supported fascism, but most people have yet to join the two together in forecasting the most likely intersection of these two closely related anti-Serbian trends.

It seems all but inevitable that if Croatian fascism is left unchecked, that it’s only a matter of time before it spills over into divided Bosnia and disastrously unbalances the already precarious state of affairs there, possibly even leading to a return to civil war and a Donbass-like scenario for Serbia where Belgrade feels extremely pressured to possibly intervene.

This forecasted sequence of events relates to the larger Great Power geopolitics surrounding the Balkan Megaprojects because Serbia’s involvement in a neighboring military conflict – provoked and pushed over the edge by American-encouraged Croatian fascism – could lead to very unpredictable consequences for the region and possibly create enough instability that the said multipolar initiatives are frozen or outright cancelled. The problem with this unipolar-concocted plan is that it’s not entirely guaranteed to destabilize the Serbian transit territory through which the gas pipeline and high-speed railroad are expected to pass, which directly leads to the complementary ‘backup’ scenario of engineering a Hybrid War in Vojvodina.

Vojvodina: The outgrowth of Croatian fascism could go east as easily as it could go south, which in that case would lead it to infecting the minds of some of the most radical Croats in Vojvodina. As it stands, an almost statistically insignificant percentage of less than 3% of the people in this autonomous province are Croats, meaning that in and of itself, it’s very unlikely for this community to stir up a lot of trouble on its own. That changes, however, if one bears in mind that the neo-fascist Croatian state has an ideological-strategic motivation in supporting them, even if it has only begun to do so indirectly and via encouraging statements.

This is already ongoing, as can be observed by Grabar-Kitarovic’s post-election comment in which she strongly implied that she views Vojvodina as a separate country from Serbia. Her continued promises to protect the “rights” of ethnic Croats in Serbia imply that they’re being violated in the first place, a common ultra-nationalist claim in Zagreb which has never been substantiated with any evidence whatsoever. While these statements might be disregarded by some as pure rhetoric for her domestic audience, it would be better to err on the side of caution and interpret them as ‘dog whistles’, or subtle signals intended to be understood only by a special group.

In this context, the former NATO infowar assistant is hinting that Zagreb wants the fascists among her fellow Croats to spring into action and begin devising destabilization scenarios inside Serbia proper. This mirrors a similar strategy the one that India is applying against Pakistan nowadays through the Baloch. New Delhi wants to up the ante in its proxy war with Islamabad and seeks to move the area of proxy competition away from the previously shared focus on Kashmir and into Pakistan proper by means of encouraging a Baloch insurgency, just as Zagreb wants to expand its rivalry with Belgrade in Bosnia away from that middle ground between them and ‘behind enemy lines’ into Vojvodina.

Fifth Generational Warfare - Vojvodina is the most strategic location in all of Serbia to wage an identity-fueled Hybrid War, provided of course that one accepts that identity differences would be used as the driving force for any instability in the region. The importance of this province is that it has an historical uniqueness relative to the rest of Serbia in that it developed within the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and not out of the Ottoman one. Although each Serbian entity’s modern-day formation occurred around the same time in the 1800s, they still experienced different historical memories that could be tapped into by identity-reformulating NGO ‘activists’ to promote a sense of regional ‘separateness’ for Vojvodina. This is the very nature of Fifth Generational Warfare, which is to ‘weaponize the previously unweaponizeable’.

In the given example, this takes the form of exploiting the identity uniqueness of Vojvodina (both in historical and demographic terms with its substantial Hungarian minority) in order to create divisions with the rest of Serbia that could then be opportunistically taken advantage of for pressuring Belgrade. Because Vojvodina is an integral and inseparable part of Serbia, the authorities are pressed to respond to any provocations that occur there, unlike the situation in neighboring Bosnia. This makes a Hybrid War in the province a much more enticing trap for Croatia to lay if it wants to produce an irresistible response from Serbia, and keeping with the geopolitical determinants guiding this policy, it’s also much more likely to lead to a cascading chain of events that could offset the Balkan Megaprojects’ transit through this chokehold region.

Hybrid War In Practice The key objective in any forthcoming Hybrid War in Vojvodina is for the radical Croatian minority-of-a-minority to link up with their likeminded Hungarian counterparts in generating a critical mass of identity-driven destabilization that could attract substantial attention. The most likely ‘partner in crime’ that the Ustasha Croats could find in Vojvodina is the Jobbik nationalists, who have an overlapping agenda of emphasizing ethnic and regional separateness in the province so as to procure disproportionate political privileges over the entirety of its territory. In a future scenario of ethno-regional provocations by the Ushasha-Jobbik alliance in Vojvodina, however isolated or widespread they may be in both objective terms and media perception, any forcible attempts by Serbian law enforcement representatives to restore constitutional order will be decontextualized and deliberately misreported to the rest of the world by the Hybrid War supporters as being ‘state-sponsored nationalist violence against democracy-seeking minorities’.

The strategic goal in mind is to use the manufactured infowar surrounding this event to produce a split between the Serbian and Hungarian governments, with Zagreb slyly gaining an inroad with Budapest over the shared interest that they’d both have in ‘protecting’ their respective minority communities from the media-manufactured ‘threat’ of ‘Serbian nationalist government aggression’ in multiethnic Vojvodina.
Although the present Hungarian government led by Viktor Orban has no problems with the Serbs or territorial claims over their internationally recognized territory, Jobbik does, and they’re in an influential enough position inside of the country to make a serious domestic scandal out of Budapest taking ‘too soft’ of an approach to the artificially constructed narrative of ‘Hungarian oppression’ in Vojvodina. Moreover, as is the trend in most Color Revolution disturbances nowadays, the far-right Jobbik opposition could team up with the anti-conservative liberals in Hungary in order to create a broad resistance front against Orban, all with the intent of pressuring him into stepping down or modifying his policies towards Serbia by making them more aggressive (regime change or regime tweaking, respectively).

Demonstrable Consequences The immediate impact of any sudden deterioration of Serbian-Hungarian relations stemming from Croatian-masterminded Hybrid War provocations in Vojvodina would be that unnecessary complications are created for the Balkan Megaprojects. It’s not just that Hungary might end up being reluctant to do business with a Serbian government that it has been led to mistakenly believe is ‘oppressing Hungarians’, but that the political turmoil which might be unleashed in Vojvodina could make it almost impossible for either of the two projects to be built through its territory until the problems are resolved. It doesn’t seem at all feasible that the Ustasha-Jobbik alliance would agitate for, or even be capable of achieving, independence or annexation by their ethnic-state compatriots, but that they’d instead pursue an agenda of Identity Federalism, just as the Serbian Province of Kosovo tried to do right before the war. This is even more dangerous than outright separatism because it has the potential for sparking political change throughout the rest of Serbia and eventually leading to the unitary government’s devolution into a federation of regional-identifying quasi-independent statelets, which would then open up a cartographic checkerboard of opportunities for foreign powers to divide and rule the once-unified Serbian lands.

It’s infinitely more difficult to achieve this in the rest of Serbia than it is in Vojvodina due to the different historical experience and demographic situation (Fifth Generational Warfare vulnerabilities), but the country’s northernmost province is a sizzling social laboratory for testing the viability of this concept because of its structural similarity to the Hybrid War-prone Republic of Macedonia. Both territories are of similar size in population and area, and each of them also has as very similar percentage of ethnic minorities concentrated in the border regions. The proportion of the combined Hungarian and Croatian minority in Vojvodina is around 15%, whereas the ratio of Albanians in Macedonia is estimated to be around 17% (having fallen from a high of 25% since the last census in 2002 and attributable to Macedonians’ visa-free travel privileges to the EU, which many Albanians exploited to illegally migrate abroad). What really completes the comparison is that both of these to illegally migrate abroad). What really completes the comparison is that both of these political entities geostrategically occupy a near-identical chokepoint position along the Balkan Megaprojects’ route, further proving that the US’ grand strategy is simply to transplant the Hybrid War destabilization template from the Republic of Macedonia northwards to the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, though naturally adapted for its new intended victim’s particular local, regional, and national circumstances.

Concluding Thoughts - The failure of the US’ repeated attempts to wage a Hybrid War on the Republic of the Macedonia and the uncertainty that an outbreak of war in Bosnia would drag in its desired Serbian target have both contributed to a reformulation of Washington’s grand strategy in trying to sabotage Russia and China’s Balkan Megaprojects. Instead of focusing on these two operational environments – both of which still remain active but are not being aggressively pursued at the moment – the US figured that it was time to open up a third front ‘behind enemy lines’ inside of Serbia itself, hence the ‘dog whistle’ signals that Croatian President Grabar-Kitarovic has been sending to Ustasha supporters across the border.

The adapted stratagem is to have the radical members of the Croatian community there link up with their far more numerous Hungarian counterparts in orchestrating a series of Color Revolution disturbances that could then rekindle the start of an international demonization campaign against the Serbian government and divide Belgrade from Budapest. Croatia’s aggression against Serbia has thus made the jump from a conventional missile race to an asymmetrical Hybrid War on two separate levels, one of which is the state-to-state pressure that Zagreb hopes to bring to bear on Belgrade (and the potential that the premeditated media campaign could mislead Budapest into following suit), while the other is the non-state leverage that the Ustasha-Jobbik alliance could have in a complementary bottom-up fashion.

The practical goal that Croatia and its US ‘Lead From Behind’ patron would like to achieve in Vojvodina isn’t separatism but federalism, hoping that at the very least this geostrategic chokepoint region would eventually be granted minority-ruled quasi-independence under a rebooted Serbian constitutional structure. The maximalist vision of this scenario sees all of Serbia carved up into regional-identifying statelets loosely bound together in a ‘Serbian Federation’, whereby the inhabitants of each zone have more loyalty to their regional identity than to their shared patriotic one as Serbs. While this eventuality might seem farfetched at the moment, Serbs have been progressively losing their national identity and unifying sense of patriotism ever since the 1999 War on Yugoslavia and subsequent imposition of a series of post-Milosevic puppet governments, so it’s not too extreme to forecast that the continuation of this trend would inevitably lead to the social fragmentation of Serbia into a collection of loosely connected Serbian-inhabited lands with time.

Accounting for the involvement of identity-reshaping NGOs and the psychological trauma inflicted on Serbs by Kosovo’s occupation, Montenegro’s separation, and any forthcoming crisis in Vojvodina, then this scenario might be a lot closer to the horizon than many people feel comfortable countenancing. That doesn’t of course mean that it’s guaranteed to happen, but just that the federalization of Serbia is by far the most disadvantageous domestic development that could occur to the country aside from a civil or international war, though because of the asymmetrical threat that it presents and the potentially less violent nature of its progression, most Serbs might not even recognize this as a danger until it’s much too late. However, the worst-case scenario for Serbia wouldn’t just be the outbreak of Zagreb-encouraged violence in Vojvodina that could set this whole chain reaction into motion, but its concurrence with the thawing of the Hybrid War crises in Bosnia and the Republic of Macedonia, as this triple cocktail of chaos would encircle the country in a ring of crises and put the paralyzed state at the immediate mercy of its foreign adversaries.
 
angelburst29 said:
VP Biden was campaigning with Killery in the State of Pennsylvania just before he left on his trip to Serbia for a three day visit. Pennsylvania is considered "a swing State" and can go either way in the election. Up to this point, Thump is still leading - so Biden needed to give a helping hand to boost her ratings. It seems any where Biden goes, in a few short weeks, there is trouble brewing somewhere close? Vojvodina seems to be the target of conflict?

In the Wake of Biden’s visit: Serbia at a geopolitical crossroads
http://katehon.com/article/wake-bidens-visit-serbia-geopolitical-crossroads

US Vice President Joseph Biden recently completed a “three day visit to Serbia” from august 16th-18th. The phrase in parentheses is the spin that Serbia’s puppet government in Belgrade put on it. He actually spent only a couple of hours in Belgrade, just enough to deliver instructions. From there he flew off to Pristina to spend the bulk of his time on NATO-occupied Serbian territory in the province of Kosovo with his real friends, who were put in charge as a result of the 1999 aggression against Yugoslavia.

It is assumed that Biden’s visit will be the last to the Balkans by a senior Obama Administration official, so it may be of more than passing significance. What kind of message did Biden bring to Serbia and the occupied province of Kosovo?

The state-sponsored revival of ultra-nationalismin Croatia is a danger to all of Europe, but its most immediate victim stands to once again be the Serbian people. This vicious ideology has been creeping to the forefront of official Croatian politics for years already, having burst out like a demon in the 1990s but intentionally put on ice during the 2000s while the country went through the process of joining the EU. Now that they’re a solid member of both that bloc and NATO, Croatian ultra-nationalists have a free hand to run wild with their fascist fantasies and rehabilitate internationally recognized criminals as so-called ‘national heroes’.

Croatia Wants To Hatch Hybrid War Violence In Vojvodina
http://katehon.com/article/croatia-wants-hatch-hybrid-war-violence-vojvodina

Geopolitical Timing Croatia’s accelerated socio-ideological degeneration is taking place in the context of continuously tense intra-federal relations within Bosnia and amidst the Macedonians’ second victory against the US’ Hybrid War aggression against them, the latter aim of which was to sabotage the future route of Russia and China’s multipolar megaprojects of the Balkan Stream gas pipeline and Balkan Silk Road high-speed railway. The timing of this development therefore cannot be seen by any responsible observer as merely being a random occurrence, especially because of the visibly high level of state backing for the neo-Ustasha movement.

This is a deliberate policy on behalf of the upper echelon of the Croatian leadership, which at this moment is represented by former Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy at NATO Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, the current President of Croatia. Being an expert in information warfare and ideological manipulation, she knew exactly which moves her government had to make in order to most efficiently speed up the country’s fascist revival, and judging by all present indicators, her policies have been a stunning ‘success’ thus far. The reason that they were encouraged to proceed with such urgency is because the US no longer has as much of a chance at destabilizing the Republic of Macedonia as it did last year, and accordingly, the subversion of the Central Balkans must move northwards in response.

International Implications

Bosnia: The situation in Bosnia is always unstable by the very nature of the state’s artificial composition and internationally enforced unity, but it’s lately been getting direr as Sarajevo played its hand in revealing its unstated intention to gradually dismantle Republika Srpska’s sovereignty. This plot has yet to succeed, but it’s importantly been exposed and all Serbs are aware of it, just as they are of Croatia’s return to state-supported fascism, but most people have yet to join the two together in forecasting the most likely intersection of these two closely related anti-Serbian trends.

It seems all but inevitable that if Croatian fascism is left unchecked, that it’s only a matter of time before it spills over into divided Bosnia and disastrously unbalances the already precarious state of affairs there, possibly even leading to a return to civil war and a Donbass-like scenario for Serbia where Belgrade feels extremely pressured to possibly intervene.

This forecasted sequence of events relates to the larger Great Power geopolitics surrounding the Balkan Megaprojects because Serbia’s involvement in a neighboring military conflict – provoked and pushed over the edge by American-encouraged Croatian fascism – could lead to very unpredictable consequences for the region and possibly create enough instability that the said multipolar initiatives are frozen or outright cancelled. The problem with this unipolar-concocted plan is that it’s not entirely guaranteed to destabilize the Serbian transit territory through which the gas pipeline and high-speed railroad are expected to pass, which directly leads to the complementary ‘backup’ scenario of engineering a Hybrid War in Vojvodina.


Russia to Carry Out Observation Flight Over Bosnia and Herzegovina

http://sputniknews.com/military/20160906/1045000392/russia-bosnia-herzegovina-observation-flight.html

Head of the Russian Defense Ministry's Nuclear Risk Reduction Center reported that Russian pilots will carry out an observation flight this week over the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russian pilots will carry out an observation flight this week over the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sergei Ryzhkov, head of the Russian Defense Ministry's Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, said.

"As part of the international Open Skies Treaty, the Russian inspection team plans to carry out an observation flight on the Russian An-30B over the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. An observation flight will be carried out in the September 5-9 period from the Open Skies airfield Sarajevo with a maximum range of up to 720 kilometers (447 miles)," Ryzhkov said.

He added that the flight would be carried out in accordance with the route agreed with the observed side, and experts from Bosnia and Herzegovina would control the order of application of sensors and compliance with the provisions stipulated in the Treaty.

The Treaty on Open Skies was signed in March 1992 and became one of the major confidence-building measures in Europe after the Cold War. It entered into force on January 1, 2002, and currently has 34 states parties, including Russia and most NATO members.
 
The Russian Emergencies Ministry's humanitarian convoy has left for Macedonia to provide relief following severe flooding in the country, the ministry said Saturday.

Russia Sends Humanitarian Aid Convoy to Macedonia After Floods - Ministry
https://sputniknews.com/europe/20160910/1045175260/aid-russia-macedonia.html

In August, storms and torrential rains triggered floods in Macedonia, in particular, in the capital of Skopje and western parts of the country. The natural disaster has claimed at least 22 lives and injured over 70 people. As a result of the flood, thousands of households and farms were destroyed, or suffered considerable damage.

"A humanitarian convoy set for Macedonia's population has left the Noginsk emergency response center. It consists of five vehicles, which will deliver mobile power units, electric pumps and food — canned fish and meat," the ministry's spokesperson told reporters.

The convoy heads for Skopje, on the request of the Macedonian authorities. Its route runs both through land and sea. According to the ministry, the convoy will head for Novorossiysk, from where it will go by ferry to the Bulgarian city of Burgas via the Black Sea, and from Bulgaria it would leave for its final destination.


I remember the word " Ljeviška" mentioned on occasions in the household while growing up. Mainly around the Easter Holiday season and Easter Breads and pastries were made for blessings in the church. It's a shame that ancient historical buildings have been destroyed in Serbia and other parts of Yugoslavia.

Serbia organized an exhibition of cultural and historical heritage of Kosovo and Metohija in Paris, the headquarters of UNESCO, to serve as a reminder to the West of how they let it be destroyed since the 2000s.

Europe's Palmyra: How Kosovo's Medieval Culture Was Demolished by Extremists (Video)
https://sputniknews.com/europe/20160910/1045171592/kosovo-historic-monuments-extremists.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl0gVmyTvLQ

There is a lot of Serbian cultural heritage in Kosovo and Metohija. Now, Kosovo is an independent state, partially recognized by Western countries. But the world was shocked by anti-Serbian riots organized by Albanians during the Kosovo unrest in 2004. Many Serbian monuments were damaged in the chaos.

Albanian extremists living in Kosovo, since the 2000s, have continued to raid and damage Serbian cultural heritage monuments under the guise of a political crisis. Last year, President of Serbia Tomislav Nikolic showed a film to foreign ambassadors about the anti-Serb riots in March 2004 in a bid to prevent Kosovo’s entry into UNESCO. The diplomats were shocked.

is unknown whether the ambassadors understood that Serbian heritage in Kosovo does not belong to any particular time or any particular generation, but to all of mankind. The attempt to push Kosovo into UNESCO failed, however, the savagery of Albanian extremists continues today.

Art historian and former director of the National Museum in Belgrade, Nikola Kusovac, said that those who decide the fate of the most significant monuments obviously do not understand that it is thanks to these shrines that the Serbs maintain their identity and their roots. These monuments have a lasting value, Kusovac told Sputnik. “It is ridiculous even to think that the hand of the one who destroyed and burned this heritage for years could now protect it. Their own heritage is limited to just the walls that they built around their homes. All those who do not have evidence of the creative spirit, now want to usurp those created by Serbian hands,” Kusovac told Sputnik. The most recent episode was a fight with Kosovo police who were agitated by the fact that Serbs originally from the Kosovo town of Musutiste wanted to visit a ruined church of the Virgin Protectoress (Church of the Virgin Hodegetria), which is under UNESCO protection, as well as to visit graves of their relatives.

As the photo demonstrates, not much is left of the church, a symbol for not just Serbia but for Christians in the entire region.

In 1905, archaeologist and art historian Gabriel Millet visited the Serbian lands and wrote that a new world had opened up before him. He immediately understood the specifics of Serbian Byzantine art and wrote that the monuments of Serbian medieval culture were quite special and unique.

A hundred years later, Millet’s covenants have been forgotten and the Serbian scientific community has once again been forced to show the world precious samples of Serbian cultural heritage.

The Government of Serbia organized the exhibition to attract the attention of UNESCO to protect the Serbian treasures located in Kosovo and Metohija. Almost forty ambassadors of the UNESCO member states observed the beauty of “Serbian Byzantium” in Paris. It was just 20 years ago when West closed its eyes on the fate of this heritage and it seems like it is in no hurry to open them. More than 150 churches and monasteries were damaged in 2004 during mass attacks by Albanian extremists on Serbian shrines. Among the rubble were monasteries on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

Ten medieval architectural monuments were destroyed just in Prizren, among them was the temple of the Mother of God Ljeviška, as well as the previously mentioned Church of the Virgin Hodegetria. The Monastery of the Holy Archangels was also almost completely demolished.

After the demolition, UNESCO included the monasteries of Visoki Dečani, Gračanica and the Patriarchate of Peć into the list. It should be noted that in 2012, 2 million dollars of the funds slated for the restoration of Orthodox churches in Kosovo were allocated by UNESCO Russia.

Shortly after the destruction of the monuments, the Mayor of Venice Massimo Cacciari said it was as if the Cathedral of St Mark's in Venice had been destroyed or any other such important artifact in Italy or France. Today, slogans of Daesh and other terrorist organizations are now visible on the shrines. Perhaps this slogan best illustrates the extremists’ intentions. Daesh terrorists destroyed the ancient city of Palmyra because they believed that history began with them.
 
Sounds familiar? :)

SWEDISH TV SAYS SWEDES MUST ACCEPT MULTICULTURALISM

http://katehon.com/news/swedish-tv-says-swedes-must-accept-multiculturalism

Swedes need to give up their identity and they must integrate with migrants because “being Swedish needs to be about more than skin color and place of birth.”

In this new TV advert from swedish charity organization “IM,” Swedes are called on to create “Det Nya Landet,” or “The New Country,” which appears to just be Africa with some Muslims and one Asian man.

The ad says it is not just on “new Swedes who need to integrate,” but “everyone needs to be integrated, established Swedes too,” meaning old people.

The big finale is to present a Somali Muslim woman in full hijab as the embodiment of “The New Country,” or the new Sweden.
 
sToRmR1dR said:
angelburst29 said:
VP Biden was campaigning with Killery in the State of Pennsylvania just before he left on his trip to Serbia for a three day visit. Pennsylvania is considered "a swing State" and can go either way in the election. Up to this point, Thump is still leading - so Biden needed to give a helping hand to boost her ratings. It seems any where Biden goes, in a few short weeks, there is trouble brewing somewhere close? Vojvodina seems to be the target of conflict?

In the Wake of Biden’s visit: Serbia at a geopolitical crossroads
http://katehon.com/article/wake-bidens-visit-serbia-geopolitical-crossroads

US Vice President Joseph Biden recently completed a “three day visit to Serbia” from august 16th-18th. The phrase in parentheses is the spin that Serbia’s puppet government in Belgrade put on it. He actually spent only a couple of hours in Belgrade, just enough to deliver instructions. From there he flew off to Pristina to spend the bulk of his time on NATO-occupied Serbian territory in the province of Kosovo with his real friends, who were put in charge as a result of the 1999 aggression against Yugoslavia.

It is assumed that Biden’s visit will be the last to the Balkans by a senior Obama Administration official, so it may be of more than passing significance. What kind of message did Biden bring to Serbia and the occupied province of Kosovo?

The state-sponsored revival of ultra-nationalismin Croatia is a danger to all of Europe, but its most immediate victim stands to once again be the Serbian people. This vicious ideology has been creeping to the forefront of official Croatian politics for years already, having burst out like a demon in the 1990s but intentionally put on ice during the 2000s while the country went through the process of joining the EU. Now that they’re a solid member of both that bloc and NATO, Croatian ultra-nationalists have a free hand to run wild with their fascist fantasies and rehabilitate internationally recognized criminals as so-called ‘national heroes’.

Croatia Wants To Hatch Hybrid War Violence In Vojvodina
http://katehon.com/article/croatia-wants-hatch-hybrid-war-violence-vojvodina

Geopolitical Timing Croatia’s accelerated socio-ideological degeneration is taking place in the context of continuously tense intra-federal relations within Bosnia and amidst the Macedonians’ second victory against the US’ Hybrid War aggression against them, the latter aim of which was to sabotage the future route of Russia and China’s multipolar megaprojects of the Balkan Stream gas pipeline and Balkan Silk Road high-speed railway. The timing of this development therefore cannot be seen by any responsible observer as merely being a random occurrence, especially because of the visibly high level of state backing for the neo-Ustasha movement.

This is a deliberate policy on behalf of the upper echelon of the Croatian leadership, which at this moment is represented by former Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy at NATO Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, the current President of Croatia. Being an expert in information warfare and ideological manipulation, she knew exactly which moves her government had to make in order to most efficiently speed up the country’s fascist revival, and judging by all present indicators, her policies have been a stunning ‘success’ thus far. The reason that they were encouraged to proceed with such urgency is because the US no longer has as much of a chance at destabilizing the Republic of Macedonia as it did last year, and accordingly, the subversion of the Central Balkans must move northwards in response.

International Implications

Bosnia: The situation in Bosnia is always unstable by the very nature of the state’s artificial composition and internationally enforced unity, but it’s lately been getting direr as Sarajevo played its hand in revealing its unstated intention to gradually dismantle Republika Srpska’s sovereignty. This plot has yet to succeed, but it’s importantly been exposed and all Serbs are aware of it, just as they are of Croatia’s return to state-supported fascism, but most people have yet to join the two together in forecasting the most likely intersection of these two closely related anti-Serbian trends.

It seems all but inevitable that if Croatian fascism is left unchecked, that it’s only a matter of time before it spills over into divided Bosnia and disastrously unbalances the already precarious state of affairs there, possibly even leading to a return to civil war and a Donbass-like scenario for Serbia where Belgrade feels extremely pressured to possibly intervene.

This forecasted sequence of events relates to the larger Great Power geopolitics surrounding the Balkan Megaprojects because Serbia’s involvement in a neighboring military conflict – provoked and pushed over the edge by American-encouraged Croatian fascism – could lead to very unpredictable consequences for the region and possibly create enough instability that the said multipolar initiatives are frozen or outright cancelled. The problem with this unipolar-concocted plan is that it’s not entirely guaranteed to destabilize the Serbian transit territory through which the gas pipeline and high-speed railroad are expected to pass, which directly leads to the complementary ‘backup’ scenario of engineering a Hybrid War in Vojvodina.


Russia to Carry Out Observation Flight Over Bosnia and Herzegovina

http://sputniknews.com/military/20160906/1045000392/russia-bosnia-herzegovina-observation-flight.html

Head of the Russian Defense Ministry's Nuclear Risk Reduction Center reported that Russian pilots will carry out an observation flight this week over the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russian pilots will carry out an observation flight this week over the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sergei Ryzhkov, head of the Russian Defense Ministry's Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, said.

"As part of the international Open Skies Treaty, the Russian inspection team plans to carry out an observation flight on the Russian An-30B over the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. An observation flight will be carried out in the September 5-9 period from the Open Skies airfield Sarajevo with a maximum range of up to 720 kilometers (447 miles)," Ryzhkov said.

He added that the flight would be carried out in accordance with the route agreed with the observed side, and experts from Bosnia and Herzegovina would control the order of application of sensors and compliance with the provisions stipulated in the Treaty.

The Treaty on Open Skies was signed in March 1992 and became one of the major confidence-building measures in Europe after the Cold War. It entered into force on January 1, 2002, and currently has 34 states parties, including Russia and most NATO members.


Bosnia: War talk again in the Balkans

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/782a027c59654df29397f729ab2a208e/bosnia-war-talk-again-balkans

In the most heated exchange since the war in the 1990s, Serbia warned Bosnia on Tuesday it would come to the defense of Bosnian Serbs if they were attacked as tensions rise in the Balkans ahead of next weekend's referendum.

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said in a statement Serbia will "certainly not allow the destruction of or a military attack" against Bosnia's autonomous Serb ministate, Republika Srpska, created under a U.S.-brokered peace deal that divided Bosnia.

Dacic was reacting to comments made by former wartime Bosnian Army commander Safer Halilovic who said that, without Serbia's support, Bosnian Serbs wouldn't be able to withstand federal forces for more than 15 days. Halilovic, a retired general, spoke to a local Bosnian TV station and was not speaking in any official capacity.

In 1992-95, Bosnian Serbs took up arms against Bosnia's secession from Serb-led Yugoslavia. As a result, some 100,000 people died and millions were left homeless in the worst carnage in Europe since World War II.

"The (Bosnian) citizens must know that on this territory the Yugoslav Army no longer exists," Halilovic told Bosnia's TV1. "Serbia can no longer help."

Dacic responded that "the statement by Safer Halilovic about the destruction of Republika Srpska represents the gravest threat to peace and stability in the region."

The Bosnian Serb ministate is holding a referendum on Sunday on maintaining the date of its national holiday on Jan. 9 — the date in 1992 when Bosnian Serbs declared the creation of their own state within Bosnia. During the war that followed, they expelled non-Serbs from the territory they controlled with the aim of making it part of neighboring Serbia. For non-Serbs living there the date is a symbol of their expulsion and a sign that Republika Srpska is still a place meant just for Serbs.

Bosnia's constitutional court has ruled that the holiday discriminates against Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats. Russia supports the referendum, while the U.S. and the West do not.

Halilovic said that the referendum is illegal and urged "it is better for us to talk for 100 years that to fight a war."

But, he added, "if he (Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik) forces us into a situation in which Bosnia is torn apart, he should know — this will not happen in a peaceful way."

An international body overseeing the implementation of Bosnia's peace accords, the Peace Implementation Council, called on Bosnia's factions on Tuesday "to refrain from reactive measures and divisive rhetoric."

It "strongly condemns statements from anyone that undermine stability and security, or which challenge the territorial integrity of" Bosnia, it said.
 
sToRmR1dR said:
Bosnia: War talk again in the Balkans

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/782a027c59654df29397f729ab2a208e/bosnia-war-talk-again-balkans


Republika Srpska's President Hopes to Discuss Counterterrorism With Putin

https://sputniknews.com/europe/20160922/1045588903/russia-republica-srpska-terrorirsm.html

Republika Srpska's President Milorad Dodik told Sputnik that he hopes to discuss struggle against terrorism with Russian President Vladimir Putin during his upcoming visit to Moscow.

Dodik is expected to visit the Russian capital and to meet Putin to discuss a wide range of issues on Friday.

"We have previously discussed the possibility of joint training of our anti-terror troops and we would like to strengthen cooperation in this sphere," Dodik said.

Dodik added that he was interested in learning Russia's point of view on such pressing issues as the Syrian crisis.

"I am very interested in Moscow's stance on the actual global issues, such as Syria… We would like to increase the potential for cooperation in the fight against global evil dubbed terrorism that poses threat to all countries," the president said.

He added that he would also touch upon economic issues, such as investment of Russia's companies into the region of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Republika Srpska is one of the two autonomous entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the other is the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their relations are largely affected by the civil war among Serbs, Bosnian Muslims and Croatians in 1992-1995.
 
sToRmR1dR said:
sToRmR1dR said:
Bosnia: War talk again in the Balkans

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/782a027c59654df29397f729ab2a208e/bosnia-war-talk-again-balkans


Republika Srpska's President Hopes to Discuss Counterterrorism With Putin

https://sputniknews.com/europe/20160922/1045588903/russia-republica-srpska-terrorirsm.html


Russian President, Republika Srpska's President Discuss Situation in Balkans

https://sputniknews.com/politics/20160922/1045608408/russia-srpska-diskuss-balkans-situation.html

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Republika Srpska's President Milorad Dodik met on Thursday in Moscow to discuss the situation in the Balkans, Kremlin said in a statement.

"The situation in the Balkans as well as different issues of bilateral cooperation have been discussed. [The sides] exchanged opinions on the relevant issues of the international agenda," the statement reads.

According to the statement, the meeting was attended by Yuri Ushakov, Russian presidential aide, and Dusko Perovic, who heads Republika Srpska's mission in Russia.

The Republika Srpska is one of the two autonomous entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the other is the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their relations are largely affected by the civil war among Serbs, Bosnian Muslims and Croatians in 1992-1995.
 
Lavrov urges Steinmeier not to fuel tensions over Serbian Republic events

http://tass.com/politics/903074?_ga=1.165793912.791922862.1474697666

Sergey Lavrov and Frank Walter Steinmeier discuss the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina after a referendum on the entity’s main holiday - the Serbian Republic Day

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told his German counterpart Frank Walter Steinmeier by telephone on Thursday that there was no need to fuel tensions over the Serbian Republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina and urged him to focus on encouraging the Bosnian sides to start a constructive dialogue, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement published at the Russian Foreign Ministry website after the ministers’ telephone conversation on Thursday.

"The ministers discussed the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina after a referendum on the entity’s main holiday - the Serbian Republic Day - which was held in the Serbian Republic on September 25 this year. The Russian side emphasized that the plebiscite was not posing any threats to the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina and was not violating the principles of the 1995 General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina," the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed.

"Lavrov spoke against attempts to inflame tensions over the Serbian Republic and called for encouraging the Bosnian sides to start a constructive dialogue on all urgent issues concerning the stabilization process in the country," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The Serbian Republic (Republika Srpska) is a constitutional state entity in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, Bosnian Muslims decided to seek Bosnia and Herzegovina’s separation from the former Yugoslavia. In response, the Bosnian Serbs proclaimed the independence of the Serbian Republic, which remained self-proclaimed and unrecognized until November 1995 when the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which put an end to the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia, was concluded and a common state of Bosnia and Herzegovina was created. It consists of two constitutional state entities - the Serbian Republic and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
 
Over 100 Daesh Recruits Returned to Bosnia From Syrian Conflict

https://sputniknews.com/europe/20161002/1045913374/daesh-recruits-bosnia.html

Over 100 Islamic extremists of Bosnian origin have returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina after taking part in the Syrian conflict, Bosnian Interior Minister Dragan Lukac said.

In November 2015, Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik said that the Daesh terrorist group is receiving large funds via an extremist network built up in Bosnia during the Yugoslav wars, stressing that Bosnia is the fifth largest contributor of foreign fighters to the Daesh.

"We already have information telling us that over 100 people have returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina from the war in Syria. We are talking particularly about members of the Wahhabist movement that were recruited via illegal underground groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina…They should know that we will react very swiftly and respond much harsher than they expect," Lukac said on Saturday, as quoted by the Radio Televizija Republike Srpske public broadcaster.

He stressed that Bosnia and the ethnically Serb autonomous Republika Srpska should cooperate in countering the spread of extremism in the country and prevent terrorist acts by militant group members.

The Interior Ministry is also actively cooperating with the United States, which has sent its instructors to work in its various special departments, the minister added.

In April, US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan visited Bosnia for talks with officials in the predominantly Muslim nation on countering terrorism.

The Daesh militant group controls large areas of Syria and Iraq and is banned in many countries, including Russia. The group is notorious for its brutality and human rights violations, as well as for recruiting people from all over the world via social networks through which it spreads its radical ideology and urges young people to join the group.


US 'Winked at Kosovo to Raise Albanian Unification Issue' After RS Referendum

https://sputniknews.com/europe/20161001/1045904698/kosovo-serbia-republika-srpska-referendum.html

Some members of the international community, in an attempt to put pressure on Serbia and Republika Srpska after a recent referendum, is behind Kosovan calls for a referendum on unification with Albania, the former head of Serbia's Military-Security Agency (VBA) Momir Stojanovic told Sputnik Serbia.

On Thursday a representative of Kosovo's ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), Nait Hasani, declared that the Kosovo Assembly ought to pass a law to organize a referendum on the question of uniting with Albania.

Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, should "use the constitutional right to pass a law and organize the referendum," said Nait Hasani, B92 reported.

This suggestion is an attempt to put pressure on Serbia, following a recent referendum in Republika Srpska, the former head of Serbia's Military-Security Agency (VBA) Momir Stojanovic told Sputnik Serbia.

In the referendum held on September 25, 99.81 percent of voters in Republika Srpska supported an initiative to make January 9 a state holiday, in spite of a ruling by the Bosnia and Herzegovnia Constitutional Court, and international pressure.

Stojanovic said that Kosovan Albanian politicians are raising the issue of Kosovo's unification with Albania because of pressure from some members of the international community, who aim to weaken the position of Serbia and Republika Srpska.

"This announcement that Kosovo will hold a referendum on unification with Albania means that somebody winked at Albanians in Kosovo and told them to raise this issue, because of the recently held referendum in Republika Srpska. It's just one of the issues used to exert additional pressure on Serbia, and Republika Srpska," Stojanovic told Sputnik.

"This is not an invention of the Kosovan Albanians – this is an invention of those who are playing with the peace and stability of the Balkans. Above all,the US and some EU countries which make the key decisions about the moves many Balkan countries make."

"This announcement functions as a threat and pressure on Serbia and Republika Srpska because of the recent referendum," Stojanovic said.

However, president of Serbia's Parliamentary Committee for Kosovo and Metohija Milovan Drecun told Sputnik that the suggestion from Kosovo of uniting with Albania is an empty threat.

"This is nothing new in the Greater Albania plans of Kosovan Albanians and their collaborators in Albania. However, the golden period of attempts to unite Kosovo and Albania disappeared when (former Albanian President and later Prime Minister) Sali Ram Berisha left power. The normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina has changed the situation significantly in favor of Belgrade," Drecun said.

"Serbia would never accept anything like that. On the other hand, there is the question of whether Albania, as a NATO member, would forcibly change national boundaries and take territory belonging to another country, regardless of the fact that Tirana has accepted Kosovo as a country," Drecun said.

"I think that would be a big political risk for Albania which would bring a lot of harm and would not bring any benefits in practice. Don't forget that the UN administration is still present in Kosovo, through UNMIK (United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo), EULEX (European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo) and KFOR (the NATO Kosovo Force)," Drecun said.

Hasani's suggestion comes just days after Republika Srpska, one of two political entities that constitute Bosnia and Herzegovina, held a referendum asking voters whether to respect a ruling by the Bosnia-Herzegovina Constitutional Court last year.

January 9 is celebrated as a public holiday in Republika Srpska, since it was founded on that day in 1992. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other entity which constitutes Bosnia and Herzegovina, does not celebrate January 9. It celebrates March 1, 1992, the day when it declared independence from Yugoslavia, but this day is not celebrated in Republika Srpska.

Last year the Bosnia-Herzegovina Constitutional Court declared the January 9 holiday unconstitutional after a legal challenge from the Bosniak member of the country's tripartite rotating presidency, Bakir Izetbegovic.

In response, President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik organized a referendum on the issue, challenging the authority of the Constitutional Court to strike down the legislation.

The decision to hold the referendum was criticized by the US, calling it "illegal."

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said the referendum was a reaction to the ineffectiveness of the Bosnian justice system, which struck down the state holiday, and condemned bias against Bosnian Serbs.

"Infringement of their legitimate rights does not evoke proper reaction from the national bodies of justice. This is why the Republika Srpska had to resort to available democratic instruments to ensure the implementation of its legitimate interests," the spokesman said, calling for further dialogue to resolve the dispute.

The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of three members: one Bosniak and one Croat from the territory of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and one Serb from Republika Srpska.

The day after the referendum Bakir Izetbegovic, the Bosniak member of the tripartite Presidency, criticized Dodik's decision to hold the referendum.

"I think there will be a gradual reaction of the international community. We watched how Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi and Milosevic defied (them), and what that looks like," Izetbegovic said.
 

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