Free Republic

SARAJEVO (AFP/EJP)--- Sarajevo is to host this month an international conference on Holocaust studies in southeastern Europe, organizers said Thursday. The aim of the conference is to "define areas in need for further investigation" as the "research and teaching on the Holocaust in the post-communist countries of southeastern Europe has fallen well behind this international development," the German Goethe Institute, co-organizing the event, said in a statement. Several dozen participants from the region -- from Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia -- will participate in a three-day conference that is to begin on October 27, it added. Participants from...

BELGRADE – Just 12 percent of Serbs believe Serbia will hold on to its Kosovo province, according to the results of an opinion poll published on Friday that fly in the face of Belgrade's official line. Fifty-eight percent said they wanted the United Nations-administered province to remain part of Serbia, but few believe it is a realistic expectation, said pollster Marko Blagojevic. 'We have two dimensions here. One emotional, and the other rational,' said Blagojevic, of the respected Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID). Serbian leaders 'managed to convince the people they want Kosovo to remain part of Serbia,...

Of all the whoppers told by former President Clinton in his Chris Wallace interview, perhaps the most outrageous was his claim that he was involved in "trying to stop a genocide in Kosovo..." In fact, Clinton's bombing of the former Yugoslavia killed more people than died in this "genocide." And his policy benefited Osama bin Laden and the global Jihad. In the year before the bombing, some 2,000 people had been killed in a civil war in Kosovo. A conservative estimate is that 6,000 were killed by U.S. and NATO bombs. It's strange as well that Clinton complained to Wallace...

I first visited Kosovo in 1988 with a group of Serbian-American students who toured some of the many historic monasteries and churches of Serbia and Montenegro. Even then, it was obvious to me that there were ethnic tensions in the Serbian province as ancient Churches were desecrated with Albanian graffiti, a car with Belgrade license plates was overturned, and we had to always walk with a guard during our stay at the Patriarchate of Pec. For me, this visit was critical in solidifying my cultural awareness and pride as a Serbian-American. In that spirit, I strongly encourage the government of...

A U.S. Congressional adviser is turning up the volume on his long-standing warnings that terrorists who have set up camps in the Balkans now easily can reach into Europe, telling reporters in Serbia that the idea now has a name – "Balkans 2020." Congressional adviser Yossef Bodansky, director of the U.S. House of Representatives Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare since 1988, told Slovenian Finance that the goal of the campaign is to set up terrorist camps in Bosnia, Kosovo, Sandzak and Croatia. He said at least five intelligence agencies now are working to track people and arms arriving...

"The main goal of the symposium is to shed light on how Islam spread in these territories based on undisputed historic facts," professor Morina told IOL. PRISHTINA — The Islamic Community of Kosova (ICK) and the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Prishtina (FIS) will co-organize on September 16-17 an international symposium celebrating 600 years of Islam among Albanians. "The main goal of the symposium is to shed light on how Islam spread in these territories based on undisputed historic facts," professor Qemajl Morina, one of the organizers, told IslamOnline.net. Debates about this issue and the role of Islam among Albanians...

Ahtisaari said that a group of experts will visit Belgrade shortly and he hopes that they in Belgrade will show a positive attitude to these proposals. During the press conference, Ahtisaari dismissed the charges of the Serbian delegation that during his Aug 8 with them he told them that the Serbs are guilty as a nation.” Particularly, Ahtisaari said that the Belgrade authorities should understand that the Milosevic policy (historical legacy) should be taken into consideration during the determination of Kosovo status and that “each nation in the world has its guilt and must pay for it.” The Serbian side...

2 September 2006 | 15:23 | FOCUS News Agency Belgrade. The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Serbian President Boris Tadic will sign Thursday a Status of Forces Agreement /SOFA/ in Washington between the government of the Republic of Serbia and the USA. The Agreement is connected to the protection of the status, the access and the use of the military infrastructure in the Republic of Serbia, RTS reported. It will deepen the cooperation in the sphere of defense between Serbia and the USA based on an absolute respect of the two countries’ sovereignty and the UN regulations. Besides,...

30 August 2006 | 14:52 | FOCUS News Agency Banja Luka. USA military forces started preparing for their pullout of the Eagle base near Tuzla, Serbian agency TANJUG informs citing Bosnian newspaper Oslobojdenje. The news of the pullout of the American troops has caused concern among Sarajevo political circles. Citing reliable sources the Bosnian newspaper announced the Americans will leave the base by the end of the year as they will be replaced by a Dutch battalion. The chair of the Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Presidency Sulejman Tihic could not confirm definitely the news of the pullout of the US troops...

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aug. 23 — For a month usually devoid of political activity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, August has been unusually fraught, as several incidents have raised ethnic tensions to a level not seen in years. On Aug. 11, a bomb severely damaged the tomb of Alija Izetbegovic, the former Bosnian president. Last week in eastern Bosnia, a group of Muslims forced their way into a Serbian church built on the former site of a mosque. And the broadcast of a videotape showing the wartime killing of an unarmed Bosnian Serb by Muslims prompted calls for a senior...

A senior Serbian government official has said she would accept a partition of Kosovo if no other long-term solution can be found. The president of Serbia's Co-ordination Centre for Kosovo, Sanda Raskovic-Ivic, also said no Serb leader would ever sign a deal giving Kosovo independence. She said Belgrade's policy was for Kosovo province to have substantial autonomy within the Serbian state. Kosovo is technically part of Serbia but has been run by the UN since 1999. The vast majority of Kosovo's population are ethnic Albanian who have been pressing for independence. Kosovo's Prime Minister Agim Ceku has ruled out...

WASHINGTON DC -- 25 U.S. Senators are asking that the U.S. president supports the democratically elected Serbian government. The letter argues that Serbia’s role is of vital importance for the future of South-Eastern Europe and America’s regional interests and that Belgrade has grown into a strong U.S. regional partner. “In order to help transform Serbia, the U.S. should support the reforms in the military and the security sectors, encourage cooperation with the Serbian Army and enabling its officers to attend military colleges and courses in the U.S.”, the letter said. The Senators remind that it is Serbia’s strategic goal to...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told European leaders to stop preaching to him about civilian war casualties in an interview published on Sunday in German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. Olmert also said it would not be possible to completely destroy Hizbollah and insisted he did not underestimate them, saying they had fired just 3,000 of their arsenal of 15,000 rockets so far. PHOTOS The week's events from around the world, captured in pictures. » VIEW THIS WEEK'S PHOTOS Diplomatic Dispatches Nora Boustany 's column reporting on Washington's diplomatic community appears each Wednesday and Friday in The Post....

Tomislav Nikolic said that the armed defense must be the last resort, should the future Kosovo status talks produce independence for the province. ;We have already had a chance to defend Kosovo against much stronger enemies”, Nikolić said in an interview with the Serbian state television (RTS), stressing that armed defense is the last option and that diplomacy must be given every chance. Nikolić said that the Radicals will take it to the streets and lead the citizens against the Serbian prime minister and president, Boris Tadić and Vojislav Koštunica, should they fail to start with preparations to return Kosovo...

BELGRADE, Serbia, July 28 (UPI) -- A nationalist leader says Serbia will go to war to take the predominantly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo should the province declare independence. "We shall never accept an independent Kosovo. We shall take up arms to fight forever to keep Kosovo within Serbia," Tomislav Nikolic, deputy leader of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party, said on the state-controlled, nationwide RTS Serbian Radio-Television Thursday night. Vojislav Seselj, the leader of the extremist Radical party, has been detained in the U.N. tribunal in The Hague awaiting trial on war crimes charges in the former Yugoslavia from 1991-95. In the past...

A prominent Serbian Orthodox bishop Thursday said the U.S. was allowing Islamic extremists to wage war on Christians in Kosovo by deciding not to oppose Kosovo's independence. Kosovo is an autonomous province in Serbia with a population of about 2 million, most who are ethnic Albanian and Muslim. It is currently administered by the United Nations Interim Administrative Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), but negotiations which began this year are expected to eventually result in independence for the province. However, Dr. Artemije Radosavljevic on Thursday issued a warning about the prospect of and independent Kosovo. "At a time when America is...

The events in Yugoslavia leading up to the NATO operations against the Serbian people in 1999 and the events which followed should be taken into consideration as a possible precursor for future actions taken against other nations and in particular, Israel. Although every situation is unique unto itself, there are patterns, models, and precedents that may indicate the direction and even to some extent outcomes. While responses and actions may differ, by looking at past events we can understand established mindsets that will determine future actions as well as results. In 1995, Militant Islamic Albanians organized into the Kosovo Liberation...

It is always very hard to focus on broad pictures when so many fires are in need of being put out. But it is imperative to keep in mind in the ongoing conflict Iran’s long-standing ties not only to Hezbollah, but to Islamists in Bosnia, a relationship that spans more than a decade. There is concern among Bosnian contacts that, if Iran feels things are going badly in Lebanon and that the war needs another front, it would take little to ignite Bosnia. It would not be hard to do and the international presence in Bosnia is greatly reduced. So...

The Bosnian government is bringing to a close five months of work reviewing how some 1,500 people - most of them fighters who came to Bosnia from Muslim countries during the 1992-1995 war - gained Bosnian citizenship. ... The 1,500 naturalized Bosnian citizens were given until last week to provide all documents used to gain Bosnian citizenship between 1992-1996. ... The Syrian-born Abu Hamza is also among those who are facing deportation. He arrived in Croatia in the early 1990s as a student and moved to Bosnia at the beginning of the war. Investigators say he lied on his citizenship...

By Mark John BRUSSELS, July 7 (Reuters) - NATO is looking at ways to allay a growing sense of isolation in Serbia, possibly with an offer of closer ties short of a full partnership, alliance diplomats said on Friday. The alliance has denied Serbia and its neighbour Bosnia entry to its Partnership for Peace programme, the first rung on the ladder to possible membership, until fugitive Bosnian Serb war crimes suspects General Ratko Mladic and wartime leader Radovan Karadzic are brought to international justice. But now Montenegro has ended its union with Serbia and Kosovo is set to go its...