Kosovo’s acting Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, said that Serbia understands better than ever before that Kosovo is a state, even though it continues to refuse to recognize it.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Kurti also accused opposition parties, saying that due to their lack of cooperation, the country went to elections twice last year. He stressed that the people of Kosovo, according to him, refuse to return “to the era of corruption,” KosovaPress reports.

Kurti said that instability in the region, through Serbia, is being fueled by the Russian Federation.

“Out of the four neighbors we have as the Republic of Kosovo, three recognize us. Only Serbia does not, and it does not seem likely to do so anytime soon. Even so, I believe they understand better than ever that we are another state. Reality has changed greatly. What needs to happen is for their dream of returning to be extinguished. Its contributor is also the Russian Empire, or what is now the Russian Federation. The Russian Empire does not want neighbors, but it is impossible not to have neighbors,” Kurti said.

At the same time, he accused the opposition over the new elections, underlining that their lack of cooperation led to fresh elections and to a strong result for him, as he won more than 51 percent of the vote.

“First of all, we did not go to new elections because we wanted to. That was not our aim; it was the result of the opposition’s lack of cooperation. We won 42.3 percent in February, but it was not enough. We tried everything. We tried to meet with one or two opposition parties. One of them did not want to meet at all; another wanted the post of parliamentary speaker with only three MPs. Then they did not accept our proposed name for speaker, even though we replaced that name dozens of times; the opposition still said ‘no’ to all of them.

Then I replaced my own name with my party deputy, Glauk Konjufca, who had served as parliamentary speaker and will be the next deputy prime minister and foreign minister. They again said no. So, throughout 2025, it was clear to people that we did not have a government not because we failed to win the elections, but because no one wanted to cooperate with us.

Therefore, I believe that if I had wanted new elections, people would have punished me. I did not want new elections, but if new elections were inevitable, it was better to be prepared. So, there were consequences of the opposition’s lack of cooperation, not of any enthusiasm on my part for new elections,” Kurti added.