The US Vice President Joseph Biden has visited today the monastery of Visoki Dechani. On behalf of the abbot of the monastery , Vicar Bishop Teodosije of Lipljan, who takes part in the regular may session of the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the high guest from the States has been received by deputy abbot Father Sava Janjic with the brotherhood of the monastery.
After the visit to Dechani church and lighting of candles, US Vice President has stayed for some time to talk with the monks. Father Sava informed Mr. Biden with a life of the monastery and a situation in which Serbs live in Kosovo and Metohija.
Vice President Joe Biden received a tumultuous welcome in Kosovo...
By Adam Tanner
PRISTINA (Reuters) - Vice President Joe Biden received a tumultuous welcome in Kosovo on Thursday just hours after leaving Serbia where thousands of police kept streets empty to avoid anti-American protests.
The contrasting welcomes on a three-day tour of the Balkans highlighted both warm Kosovar feelings for the United States which has supported its independence, and the still uneasy relations between Serbia and Washington.
"Welcome and Thank You," said posters across Pristina, showing pictures of Biden, a former U.S. senator known for his support of Kosovo independence from Serbia.
Thousands of schoolchildren lined his route into town, holding up American and Kosovo flags. They cheered wildly as his black limousine passed, and some chanted: "USA, USA.
"The United States and God saved us in 1999. Biden is our man and I came here to see him," said Shukri Morina, who traveled 30 kilometers (19 miles) to Pristina.
In Serbia, police cleared the streets of people who still bitterly remember the NATO 1999 bombing of Belgrade, and some offices were told to keep their windows shut with the curtains drawn. Hundreds of police lined Biden's route to the airport and even the tarmac itself.
Kosovo, where more than 90 percent of its two million people are ethnic Albanians, declared independence last year, but Serbia is suing in an international court, claiming it had no right to do so.
International troops still patrol, including about 1,400 from the United States. Over the past decade the international community has given billions of dollars in aid to landlocked Kosovo, the Balkans' smallest geographic country.
"I think the government has made considerable progress in the first year, it's remarkable," Biden said in a meeting with Kosovo's prime minister and president. "The United States has made it clear that the recognition of Kosovo is irreversible."
Unemployment is still very high and crime and corruption remain serious. With several European Union countries refusing to recognize Kosovo, it is the only Balkan country without any EU prospects at present.
"We have given our commitments to continue good governance, transparency, rule of law and fight corruption," said Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci. Biden's visit "is a reconfirmation of powerful support from the U.S. for the progress that we have achieved in Kosovo."
CHURCH DISPUTE
To highlight American support for the rights of the ethnic Serb minority, Biden plans to visit the 14th century Decani monastery, one of the jewels of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
But Orthodox Church leaders in Kosovo with jurisdiction over Decani criticized the plans.
"The U.S. vice president is visiting Kosovo as an independent state, to confirm the forceful secession of Serbia's territory and its handover to Albanian terrorists who were not punished for numerous crimes against Serbian people, Serbian property and Serbian cultural and religious heritage," they said in a press statement.
"Does Joseph Biden want to confirm with his gesture that Decani is an American base in Kosovo, the same as camp Bondsteel?" the statement asked, referring to a military base Biden was also to visit on Thursday.
(SOC) - The US Vice President Joseph Biden has visited today the monastery of Visoki Dechani. On behalf of the abbot of the monastery , Vicar Bishop Teodosije of Lipljan, who takes part in the regular may session of the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the high guest from the States has been received by deputy abbot Father Sava Janjic with the brotherhood of the monastery.
After the visit to Dechani church and lighting of candles, US Vice President has stayed for some time to talk with the monks. Father Sava informed Mr. Biden with a life of the monastery and a situation in which Serbs live in Kosovo and Metohija.
It has especially emphasized a need to protect human and property rights, for preservation of the Serbian spiritual and cultural heritage on these territories, as well as a need for the return of the displaced people.
Ian Bancroft
guardian.co.uk
The visit of US vice-president Joe Biden to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Serbia has reinvigorated debates about the extent and nature of US engagement in the region. Described as "unfinished business" by the Obama administration, there are growing calls for the deployment of a US special envoy to the region.
Such a move, however, would only serve to undermine the legitimacy and leverage of the EU in a region that is deemed key to the development of its common foreign and security policy capabilities. Furthermore, it would also be suggestive of a sense of urgency that belies the current situation, though often exacting and enervating, throughout the Western Balkans.
While the US was certainly instrumental in helping to end the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Europe has since developed a range of foreign policy instruments and commitments that make it substantially better prepared to contend with the plethora of challenges facing the Western Balkans on its onerous path towards EU membership.
A resolution on Bosnia and Herzegovina, passed by the US Congress last week, called for the appointment of a new special envoy to the Balkans "who can work in partnership with the EU and political leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina to facilitate reforms at all levels of government and society, while also assisting the political development of other countries in the region".
Although the resolution is not binding for President Obama, the post of special envoy has proved popular with the new administration; the last US special envoy to the Balkans, Richard Holbrooke, is currently serving as US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and George Mitchell, who was previously the US special envoy for Northern Ireland, has been appointed special envoy to the Middle East.
Deploying a US special envoy at this juncture, however, would send a clear message that Washington does not believe that Brussels is capable of sealing a swift and sound transition from the increasingly irrelevant office of the high representative to a reinforced EU presence – thereby undermining the role of the EU not only in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but throughout the Western Balkans.
Valentin Inzko, Bosnia and Herzegovina's new high representative, should therefore endeavour to guarantee that he is indeed the last high representative by ensuring that the conditions for the OHR's closure are achieved forthwith, and by defining the composition and character of the EU's future deployments in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
As the EU's enlargement commissioner, Olli Rehn, recently relayed to the foreign minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sven Alkalaj, "such a transition is indeed essential for Bosnia-Herzegovina's [EU] candidate status some time in the future". While the US can certainly complement this process, it has at the same time the potential to cripple it.
With respect to Bosnia and Herzegovina, talk of a US special envoy has increasingly coincided with debate about the need for another Dayton conference – a supposed follow-up to the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995 – as a means of reforming the country's constitution after the failure of the April 2006 package of reforms.
Such proposals for a "Dayton II" – whereby "after consultations with all participants, the US and the EU would prepare a draft new constitution that meets European standards" – have been firmly rejected by Inzko. Instead, more international support needs to be given to the Prud process – a domestic initiative aimed at achieving the consensus and compromise necessary for constitutional reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Though US influence can undoubtedly have a positive impact on certain elements of the reform process – particularly when applied with the aim of facilitating and complementing, not predetermining and prejudicing, negotiations over constitutional reform – the appointment of a US special envoy to the Balkans would only serve to undermine the legitimacy and leverage of the EU at a critical juncture for its deployments throughout the Western Balkans.
By providing a mirror to Europe and its endeavours in the region, the visit of Vice-president Biden should therefore raise further questions not about the role of the US as such, but about that of the EU itself and the need for Europe to re-engage and re-energise the Western Balkans.
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