Ilir Kulla: Serbia has an interest in fomenting religious divisions among Albanians

The director of the “Global Crisis Group,” Ilir Kulla, said that religion and the homeland are interconnected, while warning of the risk of religious divisions in Kosovo.

During the “Matrix” program, hosted by Mehmet Kalisi, Kulla discussed the relationship between religious faith, national identity and political interests in Kosovo.

Speaking about the importance of religion in relation to the homeland, he said that “without religion, there is no homeland,” linking faith to the preservation of identity and the country.

Kulla also addressed the question of which countries could benefit from religious divisions among Albanians in Kosovo. According to him, Serbia is the only country that could have such an interest, while other states have no reason to seek to divide Albanians along religious lines.

“Only the Serbs; no one else would be interested in seeing Albanians divided along religious lines, because Serbia has had it in its historical plans, from the very beginning, ever since it decided to establish its own state at the expense of Albanians, to ethnically cleanse Albanians as well.”

The director of the “Global Crisis Group” stressed that these issues had been addressed before and linked the developments of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia to the instrumentalization of religion for political aims.

“We have analyzed these issues. Only the Serbs wanted a doctrinal religious state, and they were the only ones who managed to wage a religious war in the former Yugoslavia as well, using faith for political purposes.”

According to Kulla, the political exploitation of religious identity played a role in the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, which he considered one of the most developed states of that period.

“And they destroyed one of the most developed states of the time, Yugoslavia, precisely through a war that lasted four or five years.”

His views were presented during a debate on the influence of religion in shaping national identity and the need to prevent religious divisions in Kosovar society.