Vjosa Osmani: Election reshuffle, withdrawal of police forces from the north remains to be clarified

As for new elections in four Serb municipalities in northern Kosovo, Osmani said the condition for holding them is to ensure Serb participation. “We have requested our partners' support to ensure that Serbia does not illegally intervene in another country's elections, as it did last time, and that it does not pressure Kosovo Serbs not to participate. But so far, we haven't received an answer from”. Osman is on his way.

As for the withdrawal of police forces, she said Kosovo has already proposed becoming a joint assessment of security together with KFOR and EULEX, on which the withdrawal will be made. But she stressed that common efforts to rule the law must be pursued to find criminals who exercised violence against KFOR soldiers and others.

“Vucci is back in old strategy”

Kosovo's current disputes with the EU and the US, she explained with disappointment the partner countries for the situation created in the north since May 26th, when the four Albanian mayors of Serb majority municipalities in northern Kosovo began working. As a result of the Serb violent protests, on May 29th, a large number of KFOR soldiers and civilians were injured.

The responsibility for the created situation, however, remains in Serbia, is Osmani's opinion, which accused Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic of returning to the old strategy that creates crisis after crisis, blocking the success and implementation of dialogue agreements. The “Serbs had different instruments that could have been used if they wanted to contest the legitimacy of the mayors who were elected. But they did not use any of those democratic constitutional means to do so”, the president complained.

EU access in dialogue to be more balanced

Even dialogue, the president of Kosovo, has to be more balanced: “I think one of the main reasons why we have these tensions all the time is also due to the disappointment of how dialogue is going, she said in answer to Deutsche Welle's question, regarding the EU's role as mediator in normalising relations with the neighbouring state.

Critics had Osmani against the allied countries that have not responded to the violations made by Serbia: “has had continued violations in the past two months since March 18th, when the agreement was made, but we have never heard a kind of statement from the European Union saying, yes, this is a violation of agreements. I think this is encouraging Serbia not to take care of the process and is undermining the credibility of the dialogue process. ”

The kidnapping of three Kosovo police officers was one of the last violations of the Ohrid Agreement and the 1999 military-technical agreement, Kosovo president recalled. She gave an exhibition thanks to allied countries, the US, Great Britain, and Germany, who already sought the immediate and unconditional release of three Kosovo policemen.

Association should not be like Republika Srpska

As for the Serbian Majority Commission Association, one of the key demands of international partners in dialogue, she said that “we are willing to do more for Serbs living in our country, that they feel equal, feel heard, felt involved. Kosovo is their home. But at the same time, we must be extremely careful to avoid any model that would resemble Republika Srpska. Even a distant relative of Republika Srpska is very dangerous for our region”, Osmani said.

Osmani recalled that such structures are dangerous not only for the region but for Europe as such for collective security. She said Russia has an interest in destabilizing the Western Balkans. Serbia is acting with Kosovo according to Putin's script. It's a complete copy of what Putin did in 2014 in Crime. They exploit few communities, abuse them. They make them give up their jobs in institutions, create fake operations. ”

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As for the visa liberalisation process, she said she does not believe it will be stopped, as was allied across the media: “guarantees provided by European institutions that this will not happen. At least by now. That's exactly what we've heard and been told, not only heard by others, but certainly, speaking with European institutions”, the president assured.

Osman is located in Berlin at the president's invitation, Frank Walter Steinmeier to attend the opening ceremony of the Special Olympic Games (17-26.06.23) for individuals with special skills. But the president of Kosovo used this invitation to hold a series of meetings with important political actors in Germany. She also had a meeting at the Bundestag Foreign Commission. / DW