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Vebi Kosumi
In 2005, the UN Secretary General appointed Marti Ahtisaari as a UN
Special Envoy for the future status process of Kosovo (Ker-Lindsay
2009: 26 & 105). Ahtisaari organised direct negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia, recommending in March 2007 that Kosovo should become independent under the supervision of the international community
(Babamusta 2008: 36). The United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) administered Kosovo from 1999 until 17 February 2008, when
Kosovo declared itself a Republic and an independent State (UNMIK
2013).
Kosovo’s Conflict and Third Party Involvement
The violent conflict between Kosovo Albanians and Serbs has had some
periods of “negative peace”.1 During such periods, the conflict in Kosovo was ongoing but there was an absence of widespread violence and
killing. This ended with the outbreak of war in the 1990s as the SFRY
was disintegrating. The intervention of coercive third-party can bring
such wars to an end (Cochrane 2008:55). There has been adequate political determination among the MPws to end the war in Kosovo and
maintain the peace. NATO continues to keep the peace in Kosovo and
this has been implemented through the UNMIK administration (19992008), and since then by the Kosovo Government and to a certain degree
the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX). Ethnic
tensions remain, but not large-scale violence, and certainly compared
with the period before 1999 (or even ten years ago), the overall situation
is calm. The struggles which continue are carried out through diplomatic
relations.
The nature of conflict between Serbia and Kosovo is based on different identity groups with different ethnicities, languages, beliefs and
customs. Azar’s theory can apply to Kosovo’s conflict as he refers to
1 Galtung
defines negative peace as the, “absence of organized collective violence”
(1967: 17).