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Uncertainty in the Balkans | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Kosovo's Albanian leadership, backed by the US, is pushing hard for independence, and has threatened to break from Serbia next month, with or without agreement. In response, Serbs in Bosnia have begun to talk about declaring the independence of their Bosnian Serb Republic, breaking with the central government in Sarajevo. That raises the spectre of renewed conflict in a state that fell apart in the early 1990s in a war that cost 100,000 lives and displaced millions. The mandate for the European Union's peacekeeping force in Bosnia has just expired. [21st November 2007] That will be a big part of the challenge facing Slovenia, the Alpine nation of two million, which takes over the presidency of the EU in January. We spoke to Slovenia's foreign minister, Dmitrij Rupel, about the renewed crisis in the Balkans. We then spoke to Gabriel Partos, editor of Balkan Insight and former BBC southeast Europe analyst.
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Dmitrij Rupel
Read Dan Damon's daily blog and have your say on the stories he covers.