Peci: Dialogue with Serbia cannot be closed within 9 months

Kosovo is soon expected to start the latest phase of dialogue with the Serbian state, whose mandate to lead these negotiations will be state chief Hashim Thaci. However, to be at the helm, Thaci needs the approval of the Kosovo Assembly.

Thaci, has said the negotiation process with Serbia will end after 6-9 months, and has announced that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has pledged to make her contribution to negotiations and normalisation. A rough time frame has been mentioned by Aleksandar Vuciq.

Although Peci has explained on Tuesday for Express that he cannot preach when he can get an epilog of dialogue, he says one thing is clear. It says this dialogue cannot lead to the full normalisation of relations without Kosovo access to the UN and its acceptance of independence from Serbia”, Peci added.

As he puts it, any agreement that does not meet these two elements will leave open issues between Kosovo and Serbia, which, according to him, will mostly harm our country, both domestic and external.

Kosovo and Serbia have repeatedly had a statement clash with each other because they are not respecting the decisions that have been signed in Brussels. The former ambassador stresses that it should be taken into account that if there were no tensions between the two countries, then there would be no need for dialogue for normalisation of relations, since it would be implied that they are already normalised.

The projection of this timeframe for completion of dialogue is real if some preliminary promises are met, and that first the achievement of consensus in Kosovo for dialogue, as any agreement that is reached in Brussels must be ratified in the Kosovo Assembly, and secondly, the EU before the start of this dialogue must determine its principles, as this will enable the non-remoted conclusion of them to<1>, he has indicated.

Peci even remembers that the current dialogue that has developed without predefined principles has lasted over seven years and has brought limited results in practice.

The process of dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia has started after the UN General Assembly Resolution, which welcomed the UN's JND's advisory opinion of Kosovo's declaration of independence and welcomed the EU's readiness to facilitate Kosovo-Serbia dialogue. Since the start of the dialogue process between Kosovo and Serbia on March 8, 2011, its approach has changed from what was originally called technical dialogue, in the so-called political dialogue or dialogue on normalising relations, which officially began on October 19, 2012. 19 agreements have been reached since the start of the dialogue so far