Citizens want US involvement in dialogue with Serbia

So said the manager, Life Krasniqi from KDI, with the case of publishing poll results for citizens' expectations about the final phase of Kosovo-Serbia dialogue.

According to her, only about 21 per cent of citizens surveyed were not defined on the issue.

In general, most citizens say there should be no Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, without direct involvement of the US in the process. So there are 49 per cent of citizens who say that without the involvement of the US they should not continue the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, while there are 30 per cent of citizens who say dialogue should continue even without the involvement of the US, while 21 per cent have no stance on this matter”, she said.

According to Krasniqi, it is important that citizens know exactly when and how Kosovo-Serbia dialogue will go, as 51 per cent of them believe Kosovo- Serbia must be closed within this year.

“The largest party of citizens, 51 per cent estimate that Kosovo- Serbia will not be able to close in 2018. This compared to 22 per cent of citizens who think it will, dialogue will be completed within this year and 27 per cent of citizens who do not know whether this process will end on this date”, she announced.

As for the citizens' stance on the basis of ethnic affiliations, Krasniqi said that about half the citizens of all communities -- 51 per cent of the Albanian complainers, 46 per cent of the Serb community's respondents, and 45 per cent of the other communities' respondents -- do not expect the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue to be closed in 2018 respectively.

While Egzon Osmanaj from KDI presented the results of citizens' expectations regarding the possibility of recognising the state of Kosovo on Serbia's part. On this occasion, he said most of the residents do not think Serbia will recognise Kosovo after the dialogue ends, while adding that only 1 per cent of Serbs think Serbia can recognise Kosovo after the end of this dialogue.

As for reviewing the agreements with Serbia in the Assembly, before these are signed in Brussels, according to Osmanaj, there are 67 per cent of the residents who have been declared in that way.

“If Serbia wants to recognise Kosovo with the conclusion of dialogue, we have only 31 per cent of citizens who think Serbia will recognise Kosovo at the end of the dialogue. Among them are 33 per cent, are Albanians, while 1 per cent are of the Serb community... About 67 per cent of them think the agreements reached with Serbia should be discussed in the Parliament prior to their signing in Brussels, which would give the greatest legislation on this process, but also the agreements reached”, he said.

By contrast, by this KDI research, it turns out that half of the citizens surveyed do not think that Brussels dialogue has managed to improve Kosovo-Serbia relations, against only 27 per cent of those who think relations between the two states have improved as a result of dialogue.