United States Senators Gary C. Peters and Joni K. Ernst have sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, addressing the issue of the protection of the rights of Albanians in the Presevo Valley.
“We are concerned with the treatment of this minority community in Serbia and urge you and the State Department to raise these concerns, and the need for full and lasting implementation of the Seven Point Plan, in your dealings with your Serbian counterparts. The issue of discrimination of the ethnic Albanians in Presevo has not just been documented by local authorities. International institutions, including the State Department, have catalogued and reported instances of mistreatment faced by the Albanian population at the hands of Serbian authorities,” the two senators state in their letter.
Reminding that the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the Commission Country Report for Serbia on May 10 of this years, the senators recall that the report repeats its call for Serbia “to cease all discriminatory practices and targeting, especially the ‘passivisation’ of the residential addresses of citizens of Albanian ethnicity in central and southern Serbia”.
The Seven Point Plan, developed by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), was adopted by the Serbian Government in 2013. It represents a robust framework to addressing the issues raised by the Albanian community in Serbia, representing a diplomatic path forward for a region and a community who suffered so much during the conflicts on the 1990s.
“Since that time however, the government in Belgrade has made limited progress in the implementation of this agenda. None of the seven priority areas laid out in the agreement have been completed in full and in certain areas, such as representation in government institutions, there has been almost no progress. A loss of momentum for this process would represent a significant, and wholly preventable, step backwards,” argue the senators.
Peters and Ernst highlight that they stand in support of the dialogue process and believe that a resolution to the legitimate concerns raised by the ethnic Albanians of the Presevo Valley is key to lasting peace and stability in the region.
