The Times: Kosovo goes not only against Vuciqi, even against its independents

But, Albin Kurti, who sent ethnic Albanian mayors to four Serb majority cities last week, followed the US's advice, UK and EU, Kosovo's closest friends, he is unrepentant.

He was punished by his refusal of forces from the NATO-led exercise. He believes that his reward after leaving the metallical team will be the complete defeat of his oldest vital enemy, Serbia's ultra-nationalist president, Vuciqi, whose former chief had once imprisoned him.

We need US assistance. UK and the EU”, he told The Times in a weekend interview. However, this assistance should be directed to make the benefit of the authorities”.

The recent crisis in the Balkans may sound insignificant, including four local leaders serving a population of 50,000 people. But, not only has Kurti vs. Vuciqi decided, but Kurt against forces, which, with their military intervention against the late former Freedom Slobodan Milosevic, led to Kosovo independence.

They've spent a decade trying to lift Vuciqi from his closest friend, President Putin. Because Vuciq, who was Milosevic's minister of information, plays hot and cold with Europe, often heading east, sometimes west. Serbia officially tries to join the EU.

With diplomatic and military concentration fully engaged in Ukraine, the last thing the West wants is another confrontation, so even fighting Kurt when he insisted on taking a harsh stand.

It started when almost all of the 50,000 inhabitants of four districts in northern Kosovo -- which are nearly 95% Serbs -- boycotted the April local elections. That meant four ethnic Albanians were elected by the most 100 votes. Serbs opposed, Kurti insisted, in the face of ambassadors' suggestions that “work from house”.

The result was chaos. Crowds attacked the municipalities. NATO peacekeepers were attacked by masked men. 19 Hungarians and 11 Italians were injured, along with more than 50 Serbs. Western Emisars exploded, calling Kurt irresponsible, and in private, even worse. But, he says he was defending the rule of law and democracy, which could not survive if he turned himself over to the blast from Putin's friend.

“The EU, the US, Great Britain, recognised the democratic election process,”, he said. “If the mayor doesn't want to work by his office, where will he work?” There are two key questions depending on Kosovo's future, where 13,000 people died in the bloody civil war that NATO intervention ended. The first is the degree of autonomy that will give its ethnic Serb enclave, where locals carry Serbian flags. The second is whether Serbia will ever recognise Kosovo's independence and remove its impasse on countries like Russia doing so.

The West hopes that by making concessions to the Serb minority, Kosovo will maintain peace as long as Vucic, or a successor, will eventually surrender to reality de facto, as this will be a precondition for EU membership. Kurti, who as an activist student was imprisoned by Milosevic, says Vuciq is still the same man who was then and is playing games with his fellow speakers. He says he is taking a harsh stand against municipalities because if he shows weakness, Vucinic will exploit it.

Serbs boycotted the elections in part because in a “normalisation agreement” in 2013 they were promised that their advice could form a “co-ordination of Serbian municipalities”. Never lived. Kurt accepts the problem and says he intends to deal with it but only with its terms.

He emphasises that it was a similar group of Serbian councils that joined to secede from Bosnia, supported by Milosevic, causing war there. “will not allow Kosovo to become Bosnia”, he said.

Diplomats suggest that Kurti, 48, who stood up to the anti-corruption card, is trying to show himself as a new Zelensky. They say Kosovo is very different from Ukraine, the Serb enclave more like Northern Ireland than Donbas. Asking Serbs there to forget Belgrade is like asking the Catholics of Northern Ireland to forget Dublin. Kurti denies the power of feeling in the north, they say, and by dismissing gangs that attacked municipal offices such as the fascist “ ”, is pushing ordinary Serbs into their wings.

They do not object, however, the gangs have a criminal basis: as in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, gangs of hooligans play a very big role in Serbian life. In their capture, Kurti certainly has support, even if the opposition demands compromise, for the sake of better relations with the West. He told The Times he would hold new elections, as long as Serbs promised they would not boycott them. He said he acknowledged that mayors were only “halves legitimate”.

But he added that there was at least one opposition. Only one party, supported by Vucic, 53, has any presence in the Serb community.

“We are committed to democracy,” he said. We won't have mayors. We are the most democratic state in the Western Balkans and a serious country”. /TheTime