Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti stated Friday that he has not yet decided whether he will go to Brussel for a high-level political meeting with Serbia, invited by the Chief of European Union Foreign Policy Josep Borrell, who announced a meeting to manage the crisis in north Kosovo.
During a debate at the Prespa Forum for Dialogue, Kurti did not show signs of accepting the demands of Western diplomacy to withdraw special police units from the northern municipalities and the elected mayors, who emerged from elections boycotted by Serbian parties.
Prime Minister Kurti took a challenging stance towards Borrell’s invitation.
“I have not decided yet, but I will inform Mr. Borrell in due time because he did not invite us for tonight but for next week,” he emphasized, calling the meeting invitation strange, shortly after Borrell had rejected his plan to de-escalate tensions in the north.
“When I asked to meet in Brussel, he told me that we first need de-escalation. Immediately after the abduction of three police officers, Mr. Borrell requested a high-level meeting. When tensions escalated, I received an invitation for a high-level meeting,” said Prime Minister Kurti.
He thanked the U.S. Department of State for calling for the immediate and unconditional release of the three Kosovo police officers arrested by Serbian forces on June 14th, while calling on the international community to firmly condemn what he called Serbian aggression against Kosovo.
According to Kurti, by abducting police officers within the territory of Kosovo, Serbia violated the military-technical Agreement of Kumanovo, which ended the 1999 war in Kosovo.
He expressed readiness to organize new elections in the majority-Serb municipalities in northern Kosovo, but first, he said, rule of law must be established.
“I will not hand over a democratic republic to a fascist militia and violent extremists,” Kurti stated.
Referring to the requests for the establishment of the Association of Serb-majority municipalities, Kurti said that Serbia aims for a model of the “Republika Srpska” and for this reason, it has rejected his offer to draft a statute for the Association. He reiterated that at the beginning of May, he proposed a draft for the rights of the Serbian community based on the Croatian model.
“The issue is not to draft different texts but to reach an agreement on the principles and then draft the text,” Kurti said, emphasizing that the experience of previous negotiations shows that agreement on a document and the implementation of the agreement are two different things.
He accused Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić of not implementing the Ohrid Agreement for the normalization of relations, which, according to him, provides de facto recognition of Kosovo’s independence.
Kurti, who has been strongly criticized by the opposition in Kosovo for damaging relations with allies, who have already taken and announced consequences for the country, said that Kosovo is in alliance with the EU, the United States, and NATO. He said there is no other alternative and that Kosovo does not have and does not desire another alternative.
