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Eliot Engel holds a joint press conference with then-Kosovar Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj in Pristina in November 2017.<\/span><\/div>\n\u201cThe hearing was meant to cement Engel\u2019s legacy in the Balkans, especially with respect to Kosovo,\u201d said Dan Vajdich, who covered Europe and Eurasia for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and now advises the Serbian Chamber of Commerce on attracting American investment to Serbia and the Western Balkans.<\/p>\n
Engel entered Congress just as Yugoslavia was breaking up violently along ethnic lines, and he immersed himself in the many regional disputes through his seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, eventually earning a reputation as a Balkan expert.<\/p>\n
He was among the first U.S. lawmakers to call on the administration of President Bill Clinton to intervene in 1998 to stop Yugoslav and Serbian forces in Kosovo and was arguably the most outspoken advocate in Congress for U.S. recognition of the country\u2019s independence a decade later.<\/p>\n
Engel continues to fight for justice for the Bytyqi brothers, three Albanian-Americans who fought on the side of the Kosovar rebels and were summarily executed by Serb police in 1999. Their killers have not been prosecuted.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs all of you know, Elliott has been Kosovo\u2019s greatest champion in the United States Congress,\u201d Representative Kevin McCarthy (Republican-California), the ranking minority member on the Foreign Affairs Committee, told the December 8 House of Representatives hearing.<\/p>\n
Balkan Ambassadorships?<\/big><\/strong><\/h3>\nWith Engel possibly looking at ambassadorships, some have speculated whether a Balkan role could be in the cards for the outgoing lawmaker.<\/p>\n
Balkan postings will likely open up by early 2022 as U.S. ambassadors in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina reach the typical three-year term limit for service in a country.<\/p>\n
The Biden administration may also appoint special envoys to the region, including for Serbia-Kosovo talks.<\/p>\n
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Engel would not be good news for negotiations between Pristina and Belgrade. He has become too biased, too one-sided, and he is totally out of touch with what is happening on the ground in Serbia.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
Washington is still focused on solving the unresolved dispute between Serbia and Kosovo over the latter\u2019s recognition, which would open the door for both countries to move closer to EU membership and potentially even NATO.<\/p>\n
Washington is also pushing for constitutional reform in Bosnia with the aim of maintaining its territorial integrity amid threats by Republika Srpska, Bosnia’s ethnic Serb entity, to secede.<\/p>\n
Tim Mulvey, communications director for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, declined to comment on whether Engel is interested in ambassadorial postings or being appointed as a special envoy in the Balkans.<\/p>\n
Ronald Neumann, the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy and a former U.S. ambassador, told RFE\/RL that someone of Engel\u2019s stature would more likely be tapped to head a large embassy in a Western European capital like London or Berlin rather than a small posting in the Balkans.<\/p>\n
Jelena Milic, director of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies in Belgrade, said Serbia would view it as a setback if Engel became involved in Serbia-Kosovo peace talks, due to his close ties to Pristina. For the same reason, she also doubted he would make a positive impact on regional issues if we were appointed as ambassador to Kosovo or Bosnia-Herzegovina.<\/p>\n
“Engel would not be good news for negotiations between Pristina and Belgrade,” she said. “He has become too biased, too one-sided, and he is totally out of touch with what is happening on the ground in Serbia. He still views Serbia through [the prism of] the 1990s,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Milic said the December 8 House hearing was a case in point.<\/p>\n
Engel highlighted some of Serbia\u2019s shortcomings, including its failure to prosecute war criminals, a rollback of democracy under President Aleksandr Vucic, and the country’s close military ties to Russia. The lawmaker also criticized current U.S policy on Kosovo as too beholden to Serbia.<\/p>\n
\u201cToo often we deal with Kosovo as [an offshoot] of the dialogue with Serbia. We subsume our bilateral ties to such an extent that we, the United States, are limiting Kosovo\u2019s choices to avoid offending Belgrade,\u201d Engel said.<\/p>\n
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Eliot was a singular champion on Kosovo. He didn\u2019t really have any peers. But that doesn\u2019t mean that there aren\u2019t others that will emerge [in Congress].”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
Many Balkan analysts in the United States say Engel was right to highlight those issues.<\/p>\n
But Milic said Engel distorted the perception of Serbia and failed to acknowledge some “positive changes” that have occurred over the years, listing respect for Bosnia’s territorial integrity and what she termed “cooperation” with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), despite Belgrade’s failure to extradite criminal suspects to The Hague. She also said Engel had downplayed the deaths of 2,000 Serbians during the 1999 Kosovo War.<\/p>\n
Vajdich said Engel\u2019s comments make it \u201cpolitically difficult\u201d for politicians in Belgrade to advocate for stronger ties with the United States and are used by Russia for propaganda purposes to build a divide between Serbia and the West.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Russian messaging is that America will never accept you and all it cares about is Kosovo. And it resonates with the average Serb,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Neumann said Serbian opposition to Engel would be \u201cgermane\u201d in debating who to tap as an envoy to peace talks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf one of the parties is very negative, that would not help the work of a special envoy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Janusz Bugajski, a Balkan expert at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, said Engel could still do work in the Biden administration on the Balkans that is not tied to Serbia-Kosovo peace talks, such as working with the Europeans on combating Russian and Chinese influence in the region. Engel, he pointed out, has extensive experience with transatlantic relations.<\/p>\n
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Engel speaks to the Kosovar parliament in July 2015.<\/span><\/div>\n\u201cThere are many possibilities\u201d for Engel in a Biden administration, some of which would be \u201cmore sensitive vis-a-vis Belgrade,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n