In a letter sent on Tuesday, 37 non-governmental organizations from Kosovo and Serbia – including some from Kosovo’s majority-Serb north – called on Federica Mogherini to make a clear stand against Kosovo’s partition or an exchange of territories with Serbia along ethnic lines – a suggestion that has been widely debated in recent days.

“More frequent mentions of the possibility of redrawing the borders send a very dangerous message to the citizens of Serbia and Kosovo, as well as to the entire region, that there is a real possibility of legitimising the dangerous propaganda of ethnic ownership over territory – a principle that has pushed the region on several occasions into bloody conflicts,” the letter says.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which Belgrade has refused to recognize, and EU-mediated talks on normalisation of relations were launched in Brussels in 2011. Since June this year, both sides have stated that the talks are entering the final stage.

As BIRN has previously reported, talk of an exchange of territories – swapping Albanian-majority areas in southern Serbia for Serb-majority ones in northern Kosovo – has grown more frequent among some Serbian and Kosovo politicians, although it has never been an official topic of discussion during the official Prishtina-Belgrade dialogue in Brussels.

In Kosovo, the suggested partition has drawn criticism from both ruling and opposition parties, while in Serbia, one of the most vocal critics of partition of Kosovo and exchange of territories has been the highly influential Serbian Orthodox Church.

The NGOs that signed the letter, including Serbia’s Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, YUCOM, the Humanitarian Law Centre and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights’ Serbia and Kosovo offices, warned that solutions such as partition or exchange of territories could lead to a new exodus of civilians.

Read the full article on Balkan Insight.