STA, 20 February 2019 - President Borut Pahor said the EU's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and him agreed that addressing the Kosovo situation should also allow for "out of the box" solutions, albeit not based on the ethnic principle. The pair also discussed Venezuela, with Pahor stressing that threats with military force to secure change were unacceptable.
Pahor, who co-chairs the Brdo-Brijuni regional cooperation initiative, handed to Mogherini on Wednesday an invitation to the 8 and 9 May summit in Tirana, Albania.
He stressed that her in-depth analysis, coming after five years as foreign policy chief, would be extremely valuable in the search for solutions concerning the European future of the Western Balkans.
Pahor said Mogherini agreed that original solutions should also be sought to bilateral and multilateral issues in the region. These solutions must not be based on the ethnic principle, he added.
Pahor is happy that Mogherini shares this view, which he described as very daring but still prudent, since some "out of the box" thinking was needed after years of deadlock.
When the initiative first surfaced for a compromise solution that would also involve border changes, this was raising eyebrows in the West, said Pahor, who agreed that bad past experience indeed called for caution.
He is however open to original solutions, provided the process, start to end, is conducted in a wise political fashion, with mutual respect and very disciplined oversight by the international community to prevent collateral damage in the neighbourhood.
Pahor, who said this would be part of the Belgrade-Prishtina dialogue, added "the friends of a peaceful solution to the dispute" just need to decide whether they are ready to think "out of the box".
Pahor would oppose a solution that would be based solely on the ethnic principle, while he repeated that an agreement that would not cause collateral damage should not be excluded in advance.
Pahor later also discussed Kosovo with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who stressed NATO supported the Belgrade-Prishtina dialogue while it would not go into the specific elements of the dialogue.
He said NATO supported the idea about Prishtina and Belgrade being capable of solving open issues. NATO believes in a political solution and calls on both sides to refrain from actions and rhetoric that would increase tensions, said.
Meanwhile, Mogherini's spokesperson Maja Kocijančič tweeted that the discussion with Pahor had been "excellent", and that it focused on the Western Balkans while also going beyond this topic.
Venezuela also discussed
Pahor said Venezuela had also been discussed, with the pair agreeing that the recognition of Juan Guaido as interim president until an early election was one of the solutions allowing a peaceful path to a president that would represent the country and lead it democratically.
The president said this was the "better among bad possibilities". "We're not in a position where we would have a good vs bad solution regarding Venezuela. We have several bad ones and we both see the recognition of an interim president as a better among bad options," he said.
Pahor stressed it was very important that the enforcement of these changes is not accompanied by military force or even threats of it. Such threats are unacceptable and cannot bode well for a peaceful transition in the country, he said.
