No team, no unity in key dialogue with Serbia

Glauk Konjufca, chief of the Vetevendosje Movement Parliamentary Group, has criticised the country's president, Hashim Thaci, saying he has put himself at the helm of the dialogue process without mandate from the Kosovo Assembly. The mandate for dialogue with Serbia, according to him, continues to have the Government of Kosovo, but President Thaci, as he noted, has kidnapped the leading role.

“When he was prime minister (Hashim Thaci), he met with (former Serbian Prime Minister Ivica) Dacic. Now dialogue is changing, only because Hashim Thaci has changed his public post. This is unacceptable for us, it is critical and should be stopped through Kosovo's political parties, which want Kosovo good”, Konjufca said.

On the other hand, Ahmet Isufi, chief of the Parliamentary Group for the Future of Kosovo, whose leader is Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, told Radio Free Europe, that political parties, power and opposition should express all their remarks and concerns, at the negotiating table, including objections to President Thaci's leading role in the dialogue with Serbia.

It's best to put this on the table, where all subjects will express their opinions and at the same time give power to the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo, such as the highest state body, so that there will be a parliamentary control for the talks. Then, without prejudice, they can be placed and the lines on which to go”, Isufi said.

On the other hand, last Friday, President Thaci has called on political parties to take over responsibilities for the creation of a comprehensive team for dialogue with Serbia. To that end, he has warned that this week he will invite political party leaders to a meeting.

I expect that with leaders, with the owners of institutions, the prime minister, the prime minister, also the political leaders of the coalition partners, but also of other opposition leaders, we will sit down to concreteise the establishment of the Kosovo negotiating team. Then, of a strategic team, but also of joint commissions, which will work on issues that will be opened at these meetings, in this dialogue and in these negotiations, which will include the entire political spectrum”, Thaci said.

But, Konjufca has said that President Thaci has removed the red lines in relation to Serbia, in the Brussels dialogue, which, according to him, for Vetevendosje Movement, is unacceptable.

The Vetevendosje Movement thinks that, now, when the president removed the red lines with Serbia, the Parliament should set red lines Hashim Thaci. So first, to show that he's not the reliable man who can lead these negotiations. The second, to compile a resolution from the Kosovo Assembly and establish red lines for the president as well as for Serbia. So to establish a framework of Kosovo's interests, out of which no one who can go into the future and negotiate with Serbia”, Conjufca said.

Meanwhile, Isufi stresses that political parties should sit down and talk about achieving a unity in the approach to dialogue with Serbia.

“Political parties must sit at the joint table, create the platform and also make the team's selection, each taking responsibility, based on political and institutional power, and come up with a common position, because Kosovo, whenever it has emerged with unity, has come out stronger in the face of the risks it could have in the past”, Isufi points out.

Otherwise, opposition parties in general have so far rejected President Thaci as having the leading role of the dialogue process with Serbia. They have demanded that the leading role in this process be held by the Assembly of Kosovo.