Kosovo, Serbia No Quick Agreement Expected

Thaci has stated that in the following months if it is worked by both sides [Kosovo and Serbia] a solution can be reached, which according to him would end the hostilities between the two countries.

“We will work hard and hope to see flexibility and creativity even in Belgrade, and in the coming weeks and months to reach a final” agreement, Thaci has declared.

But connoisseurs and political developments in Pristina consider that a peaceful agreement between Kosovo and Serbia continues to be elusive, and that for it, as they say, much must be worked out.

Naim Rashit, director of the Balkan Policy Group in Kosovo, tells Radio Free Europe that trends and plans, also from an international aspect, including the United States of America and the European Union, are to reach an agreement as soon as possible.

The “needs to see how real this will happen. No one knows exactly. There is optimism that the deal should be made this year by June, so spoken until Mrs. [Flica] Mogherin is in office in her post as EU High Representative. At the same time, we are not seeing formal meetings, intensifying the process of dialogue, even though counseling and informal meetings have continued. It remains to be seen and I believe the US administration will do even more in the coming months to try and produce an agreement, but there is no security and no guarantee that there will be agreements”, Rashi said.

In contrast, Professor Milazim Krasniqi, chief of the Journalism Department at the University of Pristina, tells Radio Free Europe that the process of dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia continues to be difficult, so he does not expect a quick result.

I personally think it's an optimism without any cover and it's completely unrealistic. The Serb-Albanian conflict, or Serbia, Kosovo is more than 100-year-old, with a lot of problems inside, which for now three months or for several months can't be identified and let be resolved anymore. I am convinced that this is a pressure on international circles which have their own agenda and have their own projections, but which absolutely do not concern the reality that exists in relations between Kosovo and Serbia”, Krasniqi said.

Krasniqi says there should be even a minimum of political clarity in Kosovo institutions. The current fusion on the political scene where there are three different positions regarding options for eventual agreements with Serbia, according to him, produces confusion, lethargy and danger.

In this case the president's optimism is uncovered. If viewed in fact, if he knows things that we don't know, it's another job, but the president is chosen to tell people and things, as I say, that people don't know. That's why he represents the people. In this case, there should be no rebus playing, but there should be clarity to the end of what this implies. The president has sometimes talked about border correction, demarcation and slight correction. So all of this creates confusion”, Krasniqi said.

The dialogue on normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia, which in 2011 had started as a dialogue on regulating technical issues, to continue later as political dialogue, has not produced the expected results of the parties in dialogue, nor of the European Union, as facilitators of this process, political analysts and representatives of opposition political parties have said.