Gabriel Escobar’s days as Deputy Assistant Secretary are over. He gave his remarks on the work in the Balkans during this period for Ilva Tare, a senior fellow of Atlantic Council, on her podcast, Balkans Debrief.
Escobar spoke about difficult negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia and the “elephant in the room” which is the Association of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo. Escobar said that the US and EU drafted a very good document but spending the energies on facilitating the process instead of implementing it, was a mistake because parties lack the goodwill.
“We should have insisted more on the full implementation of that rather than facilitating the two parties coming together because in some cases we noticed that there was a lack of goodwill in the parties,” stated Escobar.
Gabriel Escobar assured that the United States is fully committed to Kosovo’s independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security but as everyone knows, he confessed that, “It’s no secret that we [Kosovo and US] have had challenges in having a common vision for the region and a common understanding of how we could work together to advance Kosovo’s national project. So, I do hope that we will continue to work on improving that relationship.”
Lately Serbia has formed the new government and including there some US designated people is very disappointing for the United States but Escobar prefers to wait and see.
“Some of those people are very, very active in building ties to the United States and Europe and some of them less so, but that we will continue to communicate our expectations and our aspirations for that relationship through official channels,” Escobar added.
Finally, Gabriel Escobar spoke about Albania, a good partner in the last 5 years with a great international leadership. Even though Escobar stated that corruption is still a big problem and Albania needs political parties that hold responsible each other and for that, the opposition needs to be a trustworthy US partner.
“We need the opposition to be very clear about what their position is, clear about its leadership. And I have to say, I hope that the choice for leadership is not somebody who reminds us of the bad old days in Albania of the 90s. So, I am hopeful that eventually the main opposition party will find its way,” he concluded referring to former Albanian prime minister, Sali Berisha who is now designated from US government.
