Escobar: For the first time, we heard from Kosovo the vision of Association

The management team, consisting of four Serbs who, formally, have been appointed by the previous governments of Kosovo, has proposed the draft General Association of Serb majority municipalities, which Prime Minister Albin Kurti has rejected as he has now said.
Kurti, on the other hand, published a version of himself on which the statute of Association should be built, but he did not mention his name.

Deputy Assistant- U.S. Secretary Gabriel Escobar finds it important that he has started discussing the establishment of association. He now expects the two negotiating teams to meet within two weeks to reach a conclusion.

What Kurti and Serbs revealed is serious.

I think it's serious, but also the one introduced by the management team is also serious”

Important “Details have been discussed and it is now up to the chief negotiators to move forward and start coming in with a functional statute. Our expectations are that within the next two weeks, the chief negotiators will meet and discuss this process again”, the US diplomat said in a conversation with journalists.

Escobar says the draft Association should be passed under parliamentary and legal filters so there can be no turning back.

“Now, this process is very important and it is important that both sides, especially Kosovo, take seriously and move in a hurry to conduct it, to have reconciliation between the two sides, put it into parliamentary consideration and legal review, to make sure that it is an irreversible and central part of normalisation”, he has said.

Starting with statements by the two sides after the May 2nd meeting, it seemed that Kosovo and Serbia were apart in how they want the draft Association. However, Escobar sees as little progress the fact that the parties have offered their proposals.

“I would say we have a small level of progress with the presentation of proposals written by the two sides on what Association should look like. So, that's, I'd say, one of the first times that we've heard directly from the Government of Kosovo what's its vision of the Association of Kosovo and they have one like that, he said.

The management team has become the chairman of the talks only last month. Until a few days ago, his composition was unknown. Escobar says the focus was on Prime Minister Kurti's difficult conviction to form association, so there is not much talk about the team.

I mean, very frankly, we've had trouble convincing the Government of Kosovo to accept the legally binding commitment to form association, and that's why maybe you haven't heard about the Long-term Management Team”, Escobar said.