Ukraine joins US and EU letter: Kosovo sovereign state needs tougher access to Serbia

Ukraine is included at a level of representation as a coauthor of a letter through which the US, the EU and the United Kingdom have been asked to approach Vuciqi more sharply and for the international community to learn from the past. The letter notes that “Kosovo is sovereign country”, though Ukraine still does not recognise the independence of the Balkan state.

Russia's war and Kosovo's alignment along Ukraine at least made the issue of Ukraine recognising the independence of the newest Balkan state.

After increasing tensions in northern Kosovo, a Ukrainian MP, Olexiy Goncharenko, found that this part of the Balkans, as it was alarmed, could be affected by the effects of the war taking place in his country. Exactly a year earlier, on August 5th, 2022 had decided to hand it over to the Ukraine Parliament a draft resolution for the recognition of Kosovo.

Suddenly, the Ukrainian Parliament's Foreign Committee joined some politicians in Germany, the US and the United Kingdom in a letter to the heads of powerful Western states and the European Union itself, seeking stronger access to Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq.

Serbia's “Tendens to prevent democratic elections in Kosovo must publicly be criticised as foreign intervention and concrete measures should be taken to hold Serbia responsible if it continues to jeopardise free and democratic elections”, said the letter addressed to European Chief diplomat Josep Borrell, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.

According to Tagesspiegel, the letter was signed by the heads of the Bundestag Foreign Policy Committees, Michael Roth (SPD) and the US Senate, Bob Menandez, but also the heads of the British Chamber of Foreign Affairs and Parliaments Committee of the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Ireland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

“We demand that the international community learn from our past and ensure that we do not follow Belgrade-based policies in the Balkans”, says in the letter, where it is called for a return to “equilibrism and proportion” in Kosovo-Serbia relations.

Kosovo is a sovereign country and a functional democracy. This fact should be the basis of our common policy on the current crisis”, said in addition to this letter.

It also expresses concern about Belgrade's possible approach to Moscow, stressing that the EU and the US are following a soft policy regarding Serbia.

Vuciqi's government is not participating in sanctions against Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin enjoys sympathy among the Serbian population, while many Serbs are refusing their country's full membership in the EU, which has not been anticipated so far, Tagesspiegel writes.

In Ukraine there are separate opinions on the issue of Kosovo's recognition, Ukrainian MP Goncharenko says in an interview for Gazeta Express last year. He believes it is time for Ukraine not to stand aside and recognise Kosovo's independence. He said Ukraine's Parliament is working even in wartime and that there is the possibility of reviewing such a decision. President Voldymyr Zelensky's stance had said he did not know, but he himself, as opposition deputy, is aware that a dialogue is needed in trying for most MPs to support his initiative.