Former Thaci Adviser Calls Land Swap 'Bad Idea'

A Balkan analyst and former adviser to Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, Daniel Serwer, has said that Thaci's push for border changes as part of a final deal with Serbia had come as a great surprise to him.

"These are bad ideas whose time should not come. I also think it's not really about territory, it's really about people, that are being swapped or people who are thought to be on the wrong side of the line," Serwer told BIRN Kosovo's TV show Jeta ne Kosove on Thursday, when asked about the idea of land swaps between the two countries.

He added that he did not know of any line that could be fairly drawn that then "tells people they're on the wrong side.

"People in Kosovo should be treated as citizens of Kosovo and have the right to be protected, no matter who they are," he added.

Serwer, now director of the Conflict Management Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, called the proposal for Serbia to lose the mainly Albanian town of Presevo in exchange for the north in Kosovo "a political maneuver intended to solve some problems both domestically and internationally".

"I know that they [the leaders of Kosovo and Serbia] discussed it privately many times, but the public discussion seems to me very unanalysed, and it risks creating effects on the ground that would be extremely damaging to Kosovo and to Serbia," he said.

Meanwhile a Serbian analyst, Dragomir Andjelkovic, told the same TV show that Serbia had no intention of relinquishing any territory as part of a final deal.

He said the only acceptable solution for Serbia was for Belgrade to recognise Kosovo's independence, in exchange for the mainly Serbian north of Kosovo joining Serbia.

"To get out of this...