Serving as HM Ambassador in Belgrade from 2001-2003 I had the task of advising London on how best to handle the aspirations of demands in Montenegro for independence from Serbia.

At the time European capitals were just getting over the NATO bombing campaign aimed at ending Milosevic's appalling rule over Kosovo. So further Balkanization of the Balkans did not seem like a good idea, especially when opinion in Montenegro itself was pretty evenly divided.

Then Foreign Secretary Robin Cook took the view that such issues should not be decided on a wafer-thin minority. He also thought, looking at the Bosnia disaster, that it made no sense to support Montenegrin independence if the largest single 'ethnic' community in Montenegro (ie Serbs) were opposed to it.

Plus opinion had moved against Montenegro's ambitious leader Milo Djukanovic. He had brushed aside personal appeals from US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that he take part in the 2000 elections in the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to help bring Milosevic down. I stood in the FCO main courtyard listening to her in Washington remonstrate with him in Podgorica via the cell-phone of a US diplomat listening in on the animated conversation.

Djukanovic miscalculated. He thought that as Milosevic was bound to win by hook or by crook he would stand vindicated by boycotting the phoney election.

But Milosevic crashed. Leaving Djukanovic with the problem of remaining credible in Western eyes while standing aloof of FRY processes.

Djukanovic had his eye set on independence for Montenegro. He put his head down and decided not to cooperate on Western terms.

This did not work out as he hoped. He eventually in 2002 was compelled to agree to a new loose formation called 'Serbia and Montenegro', seen at the time as a major success for 'EU Foreign Policy'.

But nothing really worked properly in SAM. The Montengrins stalled, playing for time. Serbia's post-Djindjic leadership were unable to project any coherent policy, torn between fear of being seen as 'interfering' and unable to do much to help Montenegro's Serbs or to appeal to non-Serb Montenegrins.

My name during my posting in Belgrade was of course mud in Montenegro pro-independence circles, as I loyally pursued HMG's and EU/US policy of working to keep Serbia and Montenegro together.

All manner of banal communistic tricks were used against me when I visited Podgorica. Blatant telephone and conversation tapping. Grotesque personal attacks against me in the official and non-official pro-Djukanovic media.

I reported one especially lively piece to London in July 2002 in a telegram entitled 'Slimed!'. In it I recorded that I had been publicly denounced in Podgorica as a tool of MI5 and MI6, a Serbian nationalist with a love of "oriental cuisine, grilled meat, monasteryism and Smederevo wine". The article said that had Montenegro already achieved independence, I would have been PNG'd: "Note: as good an argument for independence as I have seen".

Anyway, I left Belgrade in mid-2003. The EU policy I was instructed to pursue steadily lost its way. The Patten (ie monied) part of the EU's external effort did not throw its weight wholeheartedly behind the Solana achievement. So much for European foreign policy

And lo, in 2006 Montenegro finally achieved its independence.

If Montenegro is now independent of Serbia it is not obviously independent of Russia, which has hit upon the happy idea of just buying goodly chunks of it.

Life goes on.

There I was in a Brussels restaurant last week when in walks Milo Djukanovic with a sizeable pack of Balkan security types, little plastic curly things sprouting from all available ears.

We greeted each other warmly. I congratulated him on Montenegro's independence and we exchanged visiting cards.

As ever, I praise fine technique.

Djukanovic knew what he wanted. And he got it.

A text-book example of a tiny, highly focused and sustained ambition defeating far larger but uncertain and disorganised opponents.