Military Intervention in Kosovo Turkey’s Stance and International Law

Abstract

The beginnings of the dispute related to the Kosovo issue within former SFRY can be found in the year 1980, immediately after the death of Josip Broz Tito. As a consequence of the pressure from the Serbs against the population in Kosovo, the Kosovo Albanians published the Declaration of Independence in 1990, followed by parliamentarian and presidential elections in May 1992, where Ibrahim Rugova was elected for the President of Kosovo. Unlike the stance of Turkish foreign politics towards the war in Bosnia, where it insisted for an immediate military intervention of the international community for a cease-fire, during the war in Kosovo Turkey was insisting for solution of the conflict as a part of the Constitution from 1974 and didn’t have a positive stance towards the eventual international military intervention in order to bring the military actions to an end. This stance of the Turkish foreign politics was a result of the fear of the Turkish authorities for eventual increase of the Kurdish minority aspirations lead by the PKK organization for secession of the southeastern part of this country, as a result of the international intervention against Yugoslavia. However, when the military actions of the Yugoslav Serbian) military and paramilitary formations against the civilian population in Kosovo intensified, Turkey, as one of the leading actors of the NATO alliance, played an active role during the military intervention against Yugoslavia. According to NATO officials, this military intervention was in accordance with the aims of the UN and it reflects the requests and aspirations of the İnternational community which are in accordance with the ones of the Organization. On the other hand, according to the opponents of this operation, the action of NATO didn’t reflect the requests of the international public, but on the contrary, the above mentioned military operation turned the NATO organization into a “world policeman”.