Escobar and Lajcak with three requests for Kurt

The European Union's envoy for dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, Miroslav Lajcak, has said that he and the American envoy for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, had three requirements during their meeting with Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurtin: calming the situation on the ground in the north, holding new elections and returning to Dialog.

The meeting was warned to start at 8:00, but it began more than 30 minutes later.

US and EU envoys will hold meetings with top state leaders in Pristina and Belgrade on June 5th and 6th.

A day earlier, Escobar has told the BBC that tensions in northern Kosovo have been avoidable, and has called on the Kosovo government to take steps towards reducing tensions.

This escalation has been partly the result of the Kosovo side's unwillingness to listen to the international community. It has provoked tensions, unnecessaryly insisting on the exploitation of municipal objects. There are other buildings from which work can be done, and if nothing else, the coronary pandemic has taught us that we can even work from alternative” locations.

Escobar has said that efforts by the international factor to co-ordinate with the Government of Kosovo have faced resistance.

There's no need to go to those buildings. They are not of real value. They're mostly dry now. Kurt has assured us that those heads will exercise only administrative authorities to perform municipal basic services”.

Among the requirements cited for the Government of Kosovo has been that young Albanian mayors do not go to municipal buildings, and that Kosovo Police forces withdraw from those buildings.

On 30 May, US Ambassador to Kosovo Jeffrey Havenier has said that as a consequence of the Kosovo government's failure to co-ordinate the United States, for actions in the north, Pristina has been excluded from major military exercises of NATO allies in the Balkan region, Defender Europe 2023.

Asked what the US currently wants from Kurti, Escobar has said that Kosovo's prime minister has been given many orders.

We have ordered him to withdraw the mayors from municipal buildings, to remove police officials from the buildings, and then, urgently, to start discussions on forming the Association of Serb majority municipalities”.

Kosovo and Serbia have reached agreement on Association in 2013 and later 2015 on principles for its establishment.

But in 2015, the Constitutional Court of Kosovo has found that the agreement is not in full harmony with the Constitution.

Serbia wants Kosovo to implement the agreements reached, but the Kosovo government has been declared against a single-ethnic association.

Kosovo and Serbia, with EU mediation, have started negotiations on normalising relations in 2011.

The sides have signed several agreements, but not all have been implemented.