Speaking for a Frankfurt-based Serbian-language daily yesterday, Jiri Dienstbier, former UN human rights rapporteur for former Yugoslavia and former Czech foreign minister said that he would never recognize Kosovo’s independence, if he were a Serbian politician.

Dienstbier stated that Kosovo has been in a “legal chaos” since some countries recognized the ethnic Albanians’ unilaterally declared independence. He said, “This chaos has been created through the arbitrary political and interest-based interpretation of the norms of international law, which is unprecedented in the history of legal systems.”

According to Dienstbier, the reason, why many countries in the world have not taken this illegal path, is that they have a “sense of shame”, while some have their own problems similar to Serbia’s. The countries that have not recognized Kosovo’s unilateral independence make up the majority, as compare to the number of states that have recognized Kosovo’s independence, which is lower than 25 percent of the world’s countries.

Dienstbier said, “The pressure exerted on the ‘disobedient’ ones is huge, both by America, and the EU’s ‘elite members’. It’s hard to say how many will succumb to that pressure. It is clear and certain, after all that’s been said and done, that Kosovo will never, but really never, be a legal and legitimate independent country.”

The former Czech diplomat said, “Kosovo cannot become a UN member, and with this, it cannot join most international organizations. Besides, the economic impotence of such a state must be kept in mind, and the fact that the international community has not managed to turn the Kosovo extremists into European democrats in the past ten years.”

“It’s ridiculous that they are convincing us the Kosovo issue is unique, that it cannot serve as precedent. They should explain this to the Kurds, the Basques and many others, so if those people ‘understand and accept’ it, there will be no precedent,” Dienstbier said.

Dienstbier concluded, “Nationalists are very happy because of Kosovo. In the words of Czech President Vaclav Klaus, by recognizing Kosovo, we are opening Pandora’s Box.”