Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, one year without talking

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, and Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, have last met on September 14th in 2023.

Ten days after that meeting, there has been an armed attack on Banjska, where armed Serb groups have killed a Kosovo police officer.

An effort by the European Union to sit together in June has failed because, as it has been said, some conditions Kurti has issued, which Vucinic has rejected.

Free Europe Radio asked Kosovo government whether the possibility of any meeting between Kurti and Vucinki is being considered, but received no answers.

The prime minister himself was asked about such an opportunity by journalists during a visit to northern Mitrovica on September 10th, but said that “does not know if there will be a” meeting.

“Even if there will be, you don't know when or what the topics will be. We need to know more about giving an answer”, Kurt said.

The same day in Belgrade, Vuciq told reporters that “Serbia is always for dialog” and said “ready to go talk to Kurti today”.

Internal Policy First

Political issues analyst in Kosovo Agon Maliqi says that, under current circumstances, a meeting between Kurti and Vuciqi can only happen if they consider they benefit from their domestic policies.

According to him, there is a range of issues that could spur such a meeting, including the indictment that Kosovo Special Prosecutorship filed on September 11th for the attack on Banjska or the Ibri Bridge case.

“However, this would be more a meeting for crisis management like the meetings in these last two or three years than to move forward with implementation of the Base Agreement [for normalising Kosovo-Serbia relations]”, Malqi says.

This agreement was reached in February of last year, but it has not been implemented and the parties have accused each other of staying out.

We have an agreement that must be implemented, Kurti said on September 10th.

Last year, Serbia's then prime minister, Ana Brnabiq, sent him a letter The EU, where it expressed reservations for this agreement.

EU special representative in the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue Miroslav Lajcak said on September 6th that Serbia has withdrawn this letter. But despite the effort, Radio Free Europe failed to receive a confirmation of this from the Government of Serbia.

Not Before the Elections

“Meetings for implementation of the Base Agreement I doubt there may be something with content ahead of the US elections and elections in Kosovo”, Maliqi says.

US presidencys are held in November, while parliamentarys in Kosovo are held in February of next year.

Maliqi says Kurti will be very careful that a possible meeting with Vuciqi will not negatively affect them in the current pre-election phase.

Similar sentiments are expressed by politician from Belgrade Ognjen Gogic.

In the near future, according to him, the meeting would occur only to keep the spirit of dialogue alive.

“I think there is always readiness and desire in the EU to hold Vuciq-Kurti meetings, because they look beautiful for European diplomacy”, Gogic says, but he is sceptical of any results.

According to him, only if Serbia would agree to discuss implementing the Base Agreement, Kurti and Vuciq would soon face each other at the negotiating table.

“ ... but, Serbia won't do that, because it doesn't agree to the agreement, despite accepting”, he says.

Both Maliqi and Gogic, part of the responsibility for this stalemate in dialogue, are placing the EU itself as mediator of the process.

According to them, it has not used “mechanisms to reward and sentence” for the parties.

The EU constantly urges them to resolve open issues with dialogue.

As a new meeting between Kurt and Vuciqi does not appear on the horizon, Lajcak said last week that reconciliation has been reached for a new round of talks between Kosovo's chief negotiator, Besnik Bislimi, and that of Serbia, Petar Petkov, but the specific date did not deliver.

Kosovo is at the centre of criticism from the international community, due to some steps it considers unilateral and uncoordinated in the northern, predominantly Serb-run part.

At the end of August, authorities have closed five parallel Serb institutions there, arguing they have acted outside Kosovo's laws, while also warning of the opening of cars of the Ibri Bridge, which divides Mitrovica into the predominantly Albanian south and Serb-run north.

Even though there is agreement on both the bridge and the parallel structures achieved in Brussels, Western allies urge Kosovo to address all issues related to the situation in the north under dialogue.

Kurti insists his government is extending order and law to the north, where since the post-war in 1999 Serbia have operated structures.

When he has refused to meet with Vuciqi in June, Kurti has said there can be no talks with him until three requirements are met: the signing of the Base Agreement, the withdrawal of Brnabisic's letter and the handover to Kosovo of Milan Radojic and his group, suspected of the armed attack on Banjska.

While the letter has reported withdrawal, about two other demands, so far, there is no development.

Vuciq warned of September 13th an address to the opinion concerning Serbia's demands and Kosovo's actions in the north. /REL/