After nine months of tension, Kurt faced each other.

For the first time in more than nine months, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, and Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, will meet 26 June in Brussels to hold, according to the European Union, a new round of talks on normalising relations.

The last meeting between them, September 14, 2023, ended without any reconciliation.

They discussed implementing the Agreement on normalising relations, reached in February of that year, but disagreed on the way.

Ten days later, on September 24th, the attack on Banjska village in northern Kosovo took place.

Armed groups of Serbs attacked Kosovo police there, killing Sergeant Africa Bunnjak. Three Serb attackers were killed in the subsequent armed clash.

Kosovo blamed Serbia's state leadership for the attack, but it denied any responsibility.

Kurti said, at the time, that dialogue for normalising relations with Serbia cannot continue, as if nothing happened in Banjska.

Speaking to the British newspaper, the Financial Times, he said that “if there are no penalties and sanctions against Serbia after what it has done, there will definitely be no dialogue”.

The international community's calls for stressing the situation, as well as the urgent normalisation of relations, intensified.

Western diplomats held successive visits to Kosovo and Serbia in an effort to get the parties back to the negotiating table.

In late October, they presented the leaders of the two countries as well as a draft state for the Association of Serb majority municipalities, which would have to be formed in Kosovo, but it did not move forward.

That same month, Kurti and Vuciq were in Brussels, where, in the margin of an EU summit, they met France's president alone, Emmanuel Macron, Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Mellon, Germany's Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

The EU named those meetings “support” for dialogue, but their marathon ended without any progress.

Offering a signal of normalisation, in December of that year, the government of Serbia decided to allow cars with license plates from the Republic of Kosovo ʹ RKS ] to circulate on its territory.

Similarly, in Kosovo, cars with Serbian illegal license plates were reregistered with Kosovo license plates. Kosovo also allowed free circulation of Serbia's license plates, which was welcomed by the European Union.

But in the first days of this year, tensions rose again, when the Kosovo Central Bank announced on January 17th that the only February currency for cash payments in Kosovo would be the euro, thereby banning the Serbian dinar.

At the time, Kosovo authorities also closed some Serb parallel municipalities in the country.

The two countries' top negotiators -- Besnik Bislimi and Petar Petkovovic -- held at least seven meetings on the issue of the dinar currency, in which the Serb community for years accepted revenues from Serbia, but all unsuccessful.

On this issue, Kurti and Vucinic also faced an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council.

The situation continued to remain tense even in the spring months, when the Serb community in northern Kosovo boycotted the voting for the dismissal of Albanian mayors: Northern Mitrovica, Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposaviq.

Taking power from them in the spring of 2023 brought tensions to the peak, and the Government of Kosovo, under pressure from the international community, issued an administrative guide on which those heads would be replaced.

But, following the call of the main Serbian party in Kosovo, the Serb List, Serbian citizens boycotted the vote that would lead to new elections.

Serbs in the north also resisted the census, organised by Kosovo institutions, while Serbia engaged in campaigning to undermine Kosovo's membership in the Council of Europe.

Kosovo did not join this organisation's agenda in May, when it was set up for its membership, after refusing to take steps towards forming the Association of Serb majority municipalities, as Western diplomats asked.

While the next meeting, Kurti-Wucciq, another issue that keeps the situation at bay, is the main bridge over the Iber River in Mitrovica, which divides this town into south with Albanians and the Serb north.

Having been a country of tensions for years, its opening for circulation was actualised in recent weeks by the North Mitrovica Municipal Assembly, but increased international security community concerns.

The Kosovo government told Radio Europe Free that in the focus of the June 26th summit in Burksel “will be implementation of the agreement towards normalisation of reports, Anex for its implementation and the way ahead of”.

Under the European Union's mediation, Kosovo and Serbia are in negotiations for normalisation of relations from 2011, but many of the dozens of agreements reached remain without implementation.

Kosovo considers Serbia a threat to its security, Serbia views Kosovo Government as such for Serbs in Kosovo.

The EU has conditioned both countries on progress towards membership in this bloc with normalisation of relations.

To Kosovo, The EU also keeps in force some punitive measures that were taken after the escalation of tensions in the north in 2023, but last week, warned that they would be removed “In part and gradually”.

In nearly three years ago, Kurti and Vuciq held a total of eight meetings, but all ended up without any signed agreement.

Eyes of opinion in both countries will be in Brussels on Wednesday to see how the ninth will end.

He comes after visits by the EU's special envoy for Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, held last week in Pristina and Belgrade.

Is there anything that happened in the background regarding the attack on Banjska that preceded this meeting? You don't know. Former Serbian List Deputy Chairman Milan Radociq, who claimed responsibility for the attack, still remains at large and sanctions against Serbia were not taken. /Radio Europe Free