Serbia’s Pinning its Hopes on the Nagorno-Karabakh Issue

Serbia hopes that Islamic countries in the upcoming September 9 UN General Assembly meeting will adopt Azerbaijan’s resolution against the separation of Nagorno-Karabakh, and based on that same principle, approve the agenda’s other important issue — the draft resolution on Kosovo, reports the Danas Daily in Belgrade.

“There are many similarities between the Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh issues, but there are also obvious differences. Considering the fact that the two parties’ main issue is establishing independence; the great powers are mainly going to compare the two parties from this perspective,” said ISAC Fund Research Director Žarko Petrović to Danas. 

According to Petrovic, the Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh issues, from Azerbaijan’s viewpoint, coincide. 

“It’s noteworthy that the Armenians are pushing the ‘historical justice’ provision forward, which is one of the important factors in contributing to the establishment of independence and it also exists in Serbia’s case. Nagorno-Karabakh’s and Kosovo’s commonality is also the completely different interpretation of history from both Serbs and Albanians, and Armenians and Azerbaijanis. The next similarity is the victims of the wars. But the outstanding difference is that talks on Nagorno-Karabakh’s status have been ongoing for more than 15 years, whereas the issue of Kosovo’s status was resolved after two years of negotiations,” he said. 

Petrovic also sees another difference: Europe and the United States are more interested in maintaining stability in the Western Balkans than in the Caucasus. 

“Consequently, these countries are prepared to more ‘efficiently’ resolve the Kosovo issue than the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. On the other hand, Russia has a bigger role in the Caucasus than in the Balkans,” he said. 

The ISAC Fund Director also said that in any case, he can’t be completely sure that the states approving Azerbaijan’s resolution will also support Serbia’s resolution: “In this matter, the states will be guided by both fundamental issues and political interests,” he said.