What is the fate of Kosovo-Serbia agreement after US elections

The US Administration Trump's interest in one of the region's most difficult problems surprised some Balkan experts, who have been expecting the American State Department to continue the old policy, under which Europe was given the leadership of talks on resolving local disputes and to join new countries in Western organisations.

First of all, Trump had asked in 2018 why the United States should put their soldiers at risk to protect Montenegro, a Balkan country that joined NATO a year ago. His comment raised concern about Washington's commitment to the region.

Many of us had thought, well he would just ignore the region and do no harm. But, Trump certainly contributed to making the deal”, Free Europe, Tanja Domi, professor of Columbia University and Balkan expert told Radio.

US involvement in countries of the region, which were part of the former Yugoslavia until 1991, had faded over the past two decades.

The White House's attention was shifted from Europe to the wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.

Russia's investigation into Ukraine's Crime Peninsula in 2014 and its support for separatists in the Donba region forced Washington to increase its involvement in Eastern Europe, including the Balkans, where unresolved disputes for decades make the region sensitive to the Kremlin's intrigues.

President Trump has signaled that his engagement in the Balkans will continue if he wins a second term on 3 November. He has told Hoti and Vuciqi he will visit both countries “in a not too distant future”.

If he completes the visit, he would be the first US president to visit Serbia since Jimmy Carter attended the funeral of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito in 1980.

Some regional analysts have questioned the administration's commitment to further involvement in the complex Balkan policy. Some even see the signing ceremony at the White House prompted by the administration's desire to echo a foreign policy victory before the November elections.

The “actually was not a real strategic approach or planning for resolving the Kosovo-Serbia dispute, rather it was a kind of PR event (Public Relations Against the Public Relations) that was very important for the” campaign, says Majda Ruge, a Balkan analyst at the European Council for Foreign Relations in Berlin.

Republican Trump is currently succeeding his Democrat rival, Joe Biden, in the polls. This year, it is expected to be a close presidential race.

Marshall Harris, a former State Department official who served at US embassies in the Balkans and later advised Senator Bob Dole, said the agreement was a step in the right direction, but did not rise to the level of a ceremony in the Oval Office.

If you analyze the deal, it's not what the administration has presented. This is not a tremendous foreign policy success”, Harris said.

The agreement envisions Kosovo and Serbia's commitment to building road and railway ties to connect their capitals in order to improve the movement of goods and people, developments that could attract Western investments. Under the agreement, Kosovo is obliged to become part of an initiative for free passport movement and tax duties, which will include Albania, Serbia and Northern Macedonia.

But the agreement failed to achieve the internationally proclaimed goal of convincing Belgrade to recognise its former province, which has been at the centre of more than a decade of negotiations mediated by the European Union, which were suspended for a while.

Kosovo, which has a population of more than 90 per cent ethnic Albanian, declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

However, the agreement brokered by the Trump administration marked the first tangible step of co-operation between the two neighbours since EU-mediated talks were cut off two years ago.

In 2018, Pristina imposed a 100 per cent punitive fee on Serbia's goods due to its “aggressive anti-Kosovo”, its lobby policy in countries respectively, to attract their recognition of Kosovo and because of its campaign against membership in international organisations, such as IINTERPOL. The United States had criticised setting the fee, and it was abolished in April.

The September 4th agreement includes a one-year rhetoric on Kosovo's recognition campaign on Serbia and Kosovo's efforts to join international organisations.

Richard Green, special presidential envoy for Kosovo peace talks- Serbia and other American officials traveled to Kosovo and Serbia just weeks after the signing ceremony to study US investment opportunities and move forward the economic agreement.

The delegation was senior officials from the US International Finance and Development Corporation (DFC), the United States Development Bank and the United States Agency for International Development.

The US State Department has said that investments in Kosovo and Serbia and the largest involvement of the US private sector, which is enabled by the September 4th agreement, will help to counter the Chinese and Russian impact in those countries.

Grenelli has said that building strong economic and personal ties between the two countries could become the foundation on which a political solution could eventually be reached.

He has said that the people of Kosovo and Serbia for decades have suffered economically until they expected their leaders to reach a political solution and that the time has come to “change” the scenario of peace talks.

Over the next year, we can see the creation and growth of jobs, and after a year, you judge where the political process is going”, Green said.

“Let's see if the focus on economics and job creation can resolve political issues”, it has indicated.