Former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer, in an interview with Der Spiegel, spoke about the war in Kosovo and defended his decision to support military intervention in 1999.
He described the intervention as a necessity to prevent a new genocide, while admitting that he regrets how long it took him to fully grasp the true nature of the conflict.
Fischer argued that if Slobodan Milošević had been allowed to fully pursue his agenda, the future of the European Union and its expansion into the Western Balkans could have been jeopardized.
“In 1995, we witnessed the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was later recognized as genocide. If I can blame myself for anything regarding Kosovo, it is only that it took me so long to understand the true nature of this conflict namely, the resurgence of an extremely dangerous nationalism, ready for mass killing and terror,” Fischer said.
He added that had Milošević continued unchecked, Europe’s political trajectory including EU enlargement in the region might have taken a very different and far more unstable course.
