Will Kosovo rock good reports Turkey ?

If anyone brings the decision to recognise Kosovo as independent, at the same moment we will launch the campaign to attract recognition”, Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, has declared, on July 22nd.

Vuciqi has thus responded to Turkey's president's warning, Recep Tayip Erdogan, who has said he will work for the new recognitions of Kosovo.

“E deeply respect Turkish President Erdogan and want better relations with Turkey, but we have our country and interests and we will behave in harmony with to”, Vuciq said during a visit to Kragujevc, a town in Serbia.

A day earlier, Serbia's president has been summoned to the Washington Agreement, which, in September 2020, has signed with then Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti, under the auspices of former US President Donald Trump.

US President Donald Trump, Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti and Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, during the signing of the White House agreement, September 4, 2020

“Belgrade and Pristina have the obligation to refrain from the withdrawal and lobby campaign for recognising Kosovo's independence”, Vuciq said on July 21st, and has added that in terms of Erdogan's warning, he wants “trying to talk to the Turkish colleague.

“This is not Turkish”, Vuciq said during his visit to the Manasi Monastery, east of Serbia.

What did Erdogan say?

As it has broadcast, on July 19th, the Reuters agency, Erdogan has declared that “hopes to have the opportunity to speak with US President Joe Biden at the UN General Assembly, in terms of international recognition of Kosovo, so that more states can recognise Kosovo”.

“We try to get as many countries as possible to recognise Kosovo”, the Turkish president has said on the eve of his visit to the Turkish part of Cyprus.

According to the list published on the Kosovo Foreign Ministry and Diaspora website, there are 117 countries that recognise independence.

Will it shift, such a warning, relations between Serbia and Turkey, which have intensified in recent years into political and economic plans?

That does not believe political analyst Firat Hamdi from the think-tank Fenix Political organisation.

“Vucciciqi means that something like that will be bad, meanwhile Erdogan means that he will support Kosovo's independence, but that will not change the situation of their co-operation on the ground. Turkey has always supported Kosovo's independence and I'm not sure that this is something big”, Hamdi has praised Radio Free Europe.

Turkey has recognised Kosovo on February 18th 2008, just one day after Pristina declared the country's independence.

Hamdiu points out that Erdogan and Vuciqi are <x0-lymatically pragmatic”, which focuses on co-operation points.

“They know which issues they can co-operate in and which they don't. They ignore topics they can't work on together. Kosovo is one of those” themes, Hamdi said, praising that Vuciqi and Erdogan are good partners who are, primarily, in the two countries' economic and trade co-operation.

“They have also decided not to focus on historical problems -- on Turkish and Serbian nationalism -- on support (of Turkey) for Bosniaks or Serb support of Republika Srpska (Bosnian and Herzegovina's office)”, Hamdi has said.

Why did Erdogan now speak for Kosovo?

The executive director of the nongovernmental organisation EPE Fund for responsible society, Marko Savkovovic, estimates that the issue of Kosovo's accession will again be in order in the autumn.

Therefore, each country has its own internal reasons because it knows or does not recognise Kosovo”, Savkovic stressed, marking the country in which Erdogan sent the message regarding Kosovo.

He said that in Cyprus, and he puts northern Kosovo and Cyprus on the same level as states, or entities fighting for recognition of citizenship. We will see whether this has only been for domestic use, to encourage Turks living in Northern Cyprus and supporting Erdogan or there are some broader implications”, Savkovic said.

Erdogan, during his two-day visit to Cyprus, has declared that the only way towards lasting peace on that island of the ethnically divided eastern Mediterranean is to accept a two-state solution, as well as to warn Turkey's greater presence in the northern part of Cyprus. This statement, reports the world media, has reduced hope for the unification of the divided island.

During the time of Erdogan's visit to Northern Cyprus, Turkish Cypriot authorities have warned the renewed opening of the abandoned part of the town of Varos for possible shift, thus promoting Western opposition but also a stern rebuke by Greek Cypriots, who say it is about organised land kidnapping, the Reuters agency has broadcast.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called this warning “provocationary” and “unacceptable”, while concern was expressed by European Union Foreign Policy chief Josep Borrell.

“Improve” of relations with West

As one of the reasons for the campaign's warning for recognising Kosovo by Erdogan, political analyst Firat Hamdi also highlights his attempt “to cure the fluctuated relations with the West”.

The European Union is the mediator in Kosovo's dialogue with Serbia, in which the final goal awaits the reaching of the comprehensive agreement for normalising relations and mutual recognition of Kosovo and Serbia.

In recent years, in terms of the Kosovo issue, Erdogan has been the quiet “”, Hamdi estimates.

Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdogan during a meeting with US President Joe Biden in 2016. By that time Biden was president of the United States.

This has happened because of relations between Belgrade and Ankara, but Erdogan has also wanted to intensify his relations with Moscow. Turkey has purchased S-400-18x1> missile system from Russia, Hamdi recalls.

Due to this move, Washington has imposed sanctions on Ankara, while US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has declared on July 21st that United States President Joe Biden is determined not to lift those sanctions.

Nuland has said that Biden could impose additional sanctions if Turkey continues to buy weapons from Russia.

The agreement about the purchase of the Russian defense system S-400, the White House's criticisms due to human rights violations in Turkey, as well as the situation in Syria, are just some of the points in the dispute between Washington and Ankara.

What has Erdogan said about Kosovo?

On the eve of a visit to Belgrade in October 2019, Turkey's president, Erdogan, has declared to the newspaper Politika that reaching agreement on the Kosovo issue, which pleases all the interested parties, is of vital importance for long-term stability in the Balkans, under which he has said Turkey joins.

Therefore, we support the continuation of the dialogue process between Belgrade and Pristina, as well as the achievement of a stable comprehensive agreement based on the free will and consensus of both sides”, Erdogan has told the newspaper Politika.

During his visit to Prizren in October 2013, Erdogan, then as prime minister, at a gathering of several thousand Kosovo citizens, had said that Kosovo is his second country.

Dear brothers and friends, we have the common history of culture and civilization. Remember, Turkey is Kosovo and Kosovo is Turkey. We are so close, so Turkish anthem author Mehmet Akif Ersoj is from Kosovo, from Peja”, Erdogan has said at the gathering, where Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and then Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci were present.

At the time, the Government of Serbia had said that Erdogan's comments represented “serious violation of international law and interference in Serbia's internal affairs”.

Such statements “also said to damage Belgrade's relations with Ankara and undermine efforts Serbia has invested in normalising the situation in the region, particularly in Kosovo”.

Aleksandar Vuciq, then as the first deputy prime minister of the government of Serbia, had ordered that Kosovo is not Turkey and had demanded that Erdogan apologize urgently.

How are today's relations with Serbia?

Erdogan has been in Serbia twice, in 2017 and in 2019, while Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, has been visiting Turkey in September 2020.

“We will maintain friendship”, ordered Erdogan in 2017 in Novi Pazar, a town southwest of Serbia, in the Sandzak region.

The Turkish president had stressed that that region, inhabited by Bosniak majority populations, is one of the most important bridges connecting Serbia and Turkey, and that that strong link has been well reflected in the two countries' bilateral relations.

To journalists' findings that Turkey has recognised Kosovo, Serbia's president, during Erdogan's visit in 2019, said Ankara has been guided with its own interests.

Let's not think about Turkey because it's useless. Our interest in that matter is still different. I thank Erdogan for agreeing that the solution we reach with Albanians will be acceptable also to Turkey”, Vuciqi's world had declared.

Erdogan said Vuciqi gave the most appropriate answer.

Serbia's president has many times named Serbia's relations with Turkey as very good “”.

“Thanks to Erdogan's commitment, a great trust has been established between Serbia and Turkey, and thanks to him, we are building the best relations, in contemporary history, between Serbia and Turkey. This is done for the interests of both peoples and the two countries”, Vuciq had said during Erdogan's visit in 2019.

Turkey looks at this space and has its soft power, which it accomplishes without any confrontation. What they've succeeded here in some way is much more than Russia succeeded”, Marko Savkovic estimated.

In December 2017, Serbia handed it over to Turkey -- Kurdin Cevet Ayaz -- despite the UN Committee's recommendation against torture -- that Serbia refrain from extradition because there was a danger he could face torture in his mother country.

Turkish citizen Kurdi Cevet Ayaz was sentenced to 15 years in prison in Turkey because of the violation of constitutional order.

Serbia's then Justice Minister Nela Kobroovic had argued Serbia's decision, saying the UN Committee's recommendation had arrived after the decision to extradite had been made.

Focus on Economy

Since Aleksandar Vucinqi's Serbian Progressive Party came to power, Turkey has increased investments in Serbia, as well as the presence of its companies.

Serbia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs website says that over 899 Turkish companies do business in this country, which employ about 10,000 people.

Trade exchange between the two countries, in 2020, reached 1.19 billion euros, Serbia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said.

Serbia and Turkey have signed 76 bilateral agreements, among which are: The 2009 Free Trade Agreement for Economic Co-operation, and the same year, Agreement between governments for Co-operation in the field of infrastructure projects, the joint political declaration for the deployment of the Council for Co-operation, in 2017.

During Erdogan's visit to Serbia in 2019, a consensus agreement on joint police patrols was signed, regulating joint patrols of Serbian and Turkish police.

The presidents of Serbia and Turkey and the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina members Zelko Komsic, Milorad Dodik and Sefik Xhaferovic (Jaferovic) were present that same year at the opening of works for the construction of part of the Belgrade highway Sarajevo. Erdogan and Vuciq were officials of the trilateral Summit of Serbia, Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which all three members of Bosnia and Herzegovina's presidency were present.

The American-Turkish consortium participates in the construction of part of the highway in Serbia.

In April 2018, Erdogan becomes an honorary citizen of Novi Pazar, the largest city in the Sandzak region of southwestern Serbia. In this city, which is inhabited by Bosniak majority, Turkey finances renovations and infrastructure construction.

Erdogan is also Turkey's first president to have visited Sandzak.

The Turkish consulate in Novi Pazar has also opened in April this year. /Rel/