Kosovo and Serbia must “more urgently than ever before” reduce the tension between them and normalize their relations. Any delay is “unacceptable”. The European Union’s Special Envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue, Slovak Miroslav Lajcak, said this on Saturday.
Together with American, French, German, and Italian diplomats, Lajcak visited the Kosovo capital Pristina, where he met with Prime Minister Albin Kurti. The group then traveled to Belgrade for a meeting with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.
“We expect Kosovo and Serbia to fully comply with their obligations,” Lajcak said. “If Kosovo wants to make progress towards the European Union (Kosovo is considered a ‘potential candidate country’), it must make progress in normalizing relations,” was his message to Kurti. In concrete terms, the Kosovo Prime Minister is asked to establish an Association of Serbian Municipalities in Kosovo. “If that does not happen, there can be no progress on the European path.”
In the predominantly Serb-inhabited towns of northern Kosovo, Serbian voters boycotted the last local vote. In this way, Albanian mayors were elected despite a turnout of barely 4 percent. The subsequent appointment of those mayors caused riots in the spring.
The summer remained quiet, but at the end of September tensions in the region rose again after the death of a Kosovo police officer. He was killed in an attack by a commando of Serb Kosovars and a politician known as a confidant of Belgrade: Milan Radoicic. The discovery of a whole arsenal of weapons has only added to Pristina’s anger. Kosovo openly accuses Serbia of being behind the murder. The investigation is still ongoing.
In Belgrade, Lajcak said that he expects “Serbia’s full cooperation in this file.”
Serbian President Vucic said after the “difficult” meeting with the European envoys that he believes in a “quick way out of the crisis”. Vucic says he is preparing for some “important meetings” in Brussels in the coming days, he wrote on Instagram. In Kosovo, Prime Minister Kurti spoke of “intense talks” that have yet to take place. Lajcak is said to have presented him with a “new plan”. /TelegraphNews
