In the words of top analyst Sergey Markedonov:
In Abkhazia, Southern Ossetia, Transdnestr and Nagorny Karabakh, the Kosovo case is seen as a legal precedent. This means that the elites of states recognized by the UN (Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan) had aimed to “solve the problem of territorial integrity” before Kosovo proclaimed its independence. After Kosovo’s recognition this year, states with territorial integrity issues have started increasing their militarist rhetoric.
If this wasn’t bad enough, he also says of the still-unrecognized countries that:
Some of them need to fight for being recognized even if the recognition comes the day after tomorrow, not tomorrow.
and:
… when there are no criteria for officially recognizing de-facto states and when the mechanisms of conflict resolution are reduced to politically correct small talk, the factor of strength becomes, as the classics once put it, “the midwife of history.”
[…] As Transdniestria becomes more and more convinced that Kosovo is indeed a precedent, some in Moldovan and their supporters are trying to turn back the tide of history by suggesting that Kosovo’s road to U.S.-recognized independence can only be a precedent if it is studiously carbon-copied millimeter by millimeter. This includes dismantling the otherwise successful state and forcing it under U.N. (UNMIK-style) administration for nearly a decade prior to independence. And it includes some 16,000 NATO troops on the ground, too. […]
Deciphering Transdniestria » Blog Archive » NATO boots on the ground in Transdniestria
March 24th, 2008