A new consultation attempt will take place this Thursday in Brussels between Belgrade and Pristina. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, urged leaders to be “constructive” but they expect “difficult discussions”.
The heads of state and government of Serbia and Kosovo continued a dialogue of the deaf in Brussels on Wednesday after the violence in late July, with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg urging them to “prevent further,” after separate talks on “restraint” and “good will.” Escalation”.
“I urge all parties to show restraint and avoid violence,” Jens Stoltenberg told reporters, warning that the NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo (KFOR) “stands ready to intervene if stability is threatened” to “freedom of movement.” to ensure for everyone”. the inhabitants” of the former Serbian province.
The alliance’s secretary-general spoke with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and then with Kosovan Prime Minister Albin Kurti, two weeks before the new administrative and border rules imposed by Pristina came into effect. The latter led to a new episode of high tensions in northern Kosovo at the end of July, where they anger the Serb minority.
“We do not agree on almost anything”
While a new attempt at consultation will take place this Thursday in Brussels as part of the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, which the EU has been promoting since 2011, Jens Stoltenberg called on them to “show flexibility and be constructive”.
Serb Aleksandar Vucic told the press he expected “difficult discussions”. “We don’t agree on almost anything,” he warned.
“It doesn’t depend on me (…) There is a new generation of young people (Serbs) in Kosovo who will not tolerate this situation, who do not want to endure terror, but who do not see Kosovo as an independent state but as a territory of Serbia in agreement with international law,” he argued.
Belgrade has never recognized the independence Kosovo proclaimed in 2008, a decade after a bloody war that left 13,000 dead, mostly Albanian Kosovars. Since then, the region has been the scene of episodic clashes. The approximately 120,000 Kosovo Serbs, a third of whom live in the north of the territory, do not recognize Pristina’s authority and remain loyal to Belgrade.
“Illegal Serbian structures turned into criminal gangs”
Pristina said he was convinced that Serbia would use the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to launch an offensive against Kosovo. “The Kosovars have every reason to be alert to our neighbor’s destructive attitude,” Albin Kurti replied at a separate press conference.
“On the one hand, there is the democratic state of Kosovo with its professional police force. On the other hand, illegal Serb structures have turned into criminal gangs that are erecting barricades in the north of the country,” the Kosovan Prime Minister stated.
Pristina, invoking the principle of “reciprocity”, plans to impose temporary residence permits on people entering Kosovo with Serbian identity cards and require Serbs present in the country to replace Serbian license plates on their vehicles with those of the Republic of Kosovo. Under American pressure, Kosovo had agreed to delay the implementation of these measures until September 1st.