3 minutes agoBislimi: In private Vuciq in Brussels says he understands he must recognise Kosovo, but ground must be prepared
Periskopi(4 years ago)
(4 years ago)First Deputy Prime Minister and chief of the negotiating team in dialogue with Serbia, Besnik Bislim, in an interview for Serbia RTK, has said that the dialogue with Serbia was originally planned to last two years, until today we are entering the 12th year of this process. He stressed that any delay in reaching the final solution damages [...]
He stressed that any delay in reaching the final solution undermines security and peace in the region, and that Kosovo and Serbia -- both countries' citizens respectively -- will suffer the biggest consequences. Speaking of normalising relations, Bislim said mutual recognition is important, if not also the main element of that normalisation, because without it, as he added, it is difficult to normalise relations.
“Vuciq at private meetings before officials in Brussels says he understands he needs to recognise Kosovo, but must prepare the ground in Serbia, time is needed and then in public he says he will never recognise it. International recognition would contribute to the much better resource exploitation of Kosovo and Serbia, which we can offer to Europe as well. But what we tried to prove to Brussels is that Kosovo's progress does not depend on recognition itself. Recognition is important for us, contributes to peace, but Kosovo can develop without recognition. In fact, we have documented over the past 18 months that in this case recognition and normalisation contribute more to Serbia than Kosovo”, Bislimi has declared.
He has stressed that Kosovo has already been democratised and has the largest economic growth ever in the region.
According to Bislim Kosovo has great progress even in rule of law, which, as he said, cannot be said of Serbia. The chief of the Kosovo negotiating team added that, if mutual recognition is viewed as a hostage, then Serbia is more than Kosovo hostage to this mutual recognition.
