The President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, has accused Serbia of continuing to violate a Brussels agreement between the two countries on missing persons, ignoring Kosovo’s demands for the opening of Serbian police and army archives regarding the thousands of persons forcibly disappeared during the 1998/1999 war in Kosovo.

Speaking after the tributes at the Memorial for the Dead on April 27 in Pristina, Osmani said that “even today, Serbia continues to commit a double crime, because it once committed the crime, and then did its best to hide it, hiding the traces of crime even 25 years later”.

In Kosovo, April 27 marks the National Day of the Forced Disappeared during the war. About 6,000 people disappeared during the last war, of which over 1,600 are still unaccounted for.

“Despite the fact that the chairman of the government commission, Andin Hoti, has sent letters to Serbia several times, asking him… to open the archives for the data of the police and military brigades, for which there is evidence that they participated in massacres but also in operations after the war to hide the troops – Serbia still does not respond to these demands and continues to violate this agreement reached in Brussels,” said Osmani.

Kosovo and Serbia, a year ago, agreed on the Joint Declaration for missing persons, within the dialogue for the normalization of relations mediated by the European Union.

The commitments that were made with this statement include: full access to reliable information, including those with classified status; making available all relevant documents for determining the fate of missing persons, as well as joint work through a commission chaired by the European Union.

A year later, none of this in practice, all only on paper.

The EU spokesperson, Peter Stano, confirmed for Radio Free Europe a few days ago that the Joint Declaration, approved by the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, and the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, in May 2023, “is not still applies”.

Stano emphasized that the Declaration is not legally binding, but added that the EU requires the parties to engage “constructively” within the dialogue, to reach agreement on the terms of reference.

During the war in Kosovo, about 13,000 people were killed, over 800,000 were displaced, while about 6,000 disappeared, of which about 1,600 are still missing.

Hundreds of bodies of murdered Kosovo Albanians have been found in mass graves in Serbia.