Open letter urging EU and US to refuse division of Kosovo

Intellectuals, experts and organisations from the Balkans and abroad have signed an open letter calling for rejection of proposals for resolving the Kosovo-Serbia dispute through a “border correction”.

“We pray to the EU, its member states, and to the US to reconsider, including through their legislative bodies ʹ their position for such a return to the intensifying of policies and borders”, it says on paper.

Among the 51 signatories are Balkan experts, researchers and former diplomats, including Florian Bieber, Wolfgang Ischinger, Erwan Fouéré, Adriatic Kelmendi, Marko Attila Hoare, Jasmin Mujanovac, Veton Surroi, Toby Vogel, Bodo Weber, and others.

Organizations that have signed the complaint include B IERN Kosova, the Fund for Kosovo Humanitarian Law, election overseer GONG from Croatia, Bosnia and the Youth Policy Initiative in Pristina, TOKA.

The letter says the effect of border changes in running ethnic homogenity will have a harmful impact on Kosovo, on its immediate neighbourhood and on the wider region.

Moreover, it will be seen as granting international license for a brand of “policy to a large man” that should have long left the region. Citizens of the entire region will suffer the impact of such an agreement, despite its modalities”, signatories warn.

Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, is thought to be pushing for a territorial exchange as a way to finally resolve the dispute and thus continue with Serbia's aspirations for EU membership.

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci recently said he will raise the issue of “border correction” in negotiations with Serbia.

Territorial exchanges between Kosovo and Serbia have not been officially established in the talks, but potentially would have to do with the northern, mainly Kosovo Serb and some of the southern Serbian Albanian majority circles.

You Can Read the Complete Letter in this link.