Kosutic Already in Procedure

by Raul Tajtelbaum

There are no special problems surrounding the accreditation of Budimir Kosutic to Israel, said the Israeli Foreign Ministry officials in Jerusalem this week. Thus, Kosutic will most likely in a few weeks formally become the first ambassador of the incomplete Yugoslavia, elected by its incomplete presidency, as first reported by VREME.

The legitimacy of this accreditation is not an issue at the moment. This was resolved last year when Jerusalem accepted and gave an affirmative answer to the belated decision of the Yugoslav government concerning the restoration of diplomatic relations.

Owing to the specific legal situation in which Yugoslavia found itself and to the problem of the legitimacy of the remainder of Yugoslavia as a legal and formal Yugoslav heir, as well as to the question of the legitimacy of an incomplete presidency, internal discussions took place before Israel decided to give an positive answer to the decision of the Yugoslav government. The question of legitimacy was resolved by the affirmative reply of the Israeli diplomacy. That decision was certainly not passed as a result of an in-depth analysis of international law , since Yugoslavia definitely represents an exception in this respect. Yugoslavia has fallen apart, but it still exists as an international subject, if only in name. The Israelis stuck to their own brand of diplomacy in the process of renewing diplomatic relations. They wanted to close the historical circle. Yugoslavia who initiated the break-off of diplomatic relations with Israel in June 1987, and who imposed various conditions over the years to restore them, was the last East-European country to unconditionally restore diplomatic relations with Israel. The fact that the situation in Yugoslavia had drastically changed since then did not bother the Jewish state too much: it has a rather cautious attitude in this respect. Thus, formal diplomatic relations between the two countries have been in existence from October 8 of last year when Israel accepted the decision of the Yugoslav government to restore them to embassy level. The question of the accreditation of ambassadors is not a principal political problem but more of a formal nature.

The accreditation process of Ambassador Kosutic is no longer in the hands of the political forums of the ministries, but dealt with by the department in charge of diplomatic ceremonial, as explained to me by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "This formal procedure surrounding the accreditation of diplomatic representatives takes some time and in this sense the accreditation of the Yugoslav ambassador is no exception".