FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was advised to work with the Liberation Army during the war in Kosovo, despite reportedly believing that they [KLA] were not "much better than the Serbs".
But Blair was seeking to end crimes against humanity by the Serbs, according to British National Archives documents revealed on Friday, writes The Guardian.
Blair, then Prime Minister of Great Britain, was very embarrassed that he appeared to be too close to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which was fighting Serbian nationalist forces led by Slobodan Milosevic.
"In general, our starting point in a conflict like this should be that the enemy of your enemy is your friend," said Blair's advice on the war in Kosovo, according to National Archives documents.
"We are in danger of being too dismissive. We do not want to politically favor the KLA over other Kosovar parties. But we must reckon that the KLA is becoming much more popular after what has happened [in the Yugoslav wars] and admit that they are the only party with some kind of army," said the letter prepared by John Sawers, at the time Blair's foreign affairs adviser and later head of the Secret Intelligence Service.
In the letter, sent to Blair and his top aides, Sawersi estimates that it would be impossible to disarm the KLA after the conflict. Instead, he advised, it would be better to work with the organization to announce elections.
At the bottom of the letter, released to the National Archives by the Cabinet Office on Friday, an "anonymous" hand wrote: "I agree."
The note makes clear the anxiety about the nature and involvement of the UK in the brutal multi-factional conflict that raged in the former Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001.
NATO interventions included airstrikes against the forces of Milosevic, who died in 2006 while on trial for war crimes.
Great Britain, under Blair's leadership, would later become one of the main supporters of the KLA under its then leader Hashim Thaçi.
In April of this year, Thaçi appeared in the dock of a court in The Hague - together with three other leaders of the KLA, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi - accused of war crimes that include collaboration suspected in the murder of 102 people.
Blair's team declined to comment on the National Archives documents.
In 2010, Blair was declared "Doctor honoris causa" by the University of Pristina.
Lini një Përgjigje