Albania’s PM, Edi Rama expressed his reservations regarding Kosovo’s plan to file a lawsuit against Serbia at the International Court of Justice on allegations of genocide.
In an interview for Euronews Serbia, Rama pointed out that both parties need to focus on the future, in order to resolve problems of the past once and for all.
However, the final decision according to him belongs to the political cast of Prishtina, not Tirana.
“Firstly, this is a very complicated matter from the contextual legal aspect. Secondly, I believe and have publicly stated that we will focus on the solution of this conflict and on the future. And we should think much more about how many more years we can continue to lose by not resolving this conflict. There can be no winners without a solution. Genocide is a very well-defined word, in humanity’s judicial architecture and I believe that it would be, not an initiative that would bring about results, that would help with peace and collaboration but it would be their independent decision, not mine or the Albanians’,” stated Rama.
When asked if he would support the lawsuit in the case that Kosovo asks him to, Rama suggested that the Kosovar side, despite their autonomous right to decide, should first and foremost make a series of consultations with its allies and partners.
“We have been very clear and more than once. The Albanian parliament has passed many resolutions throughout its history, and the last thing I would say and which is very important is that we don’t live in a world, where we are alone. That is why, we have partners and allies. Kosovo itself is a new reality that is a result of major efforts inside and outside of Kosovo. This is why, these major ideas and major decisions shouldn’t be made only because someone believes they should, but they should be made after a series of clear consultations and after hearing what our partners and allies have to say, and to this day I haven’t heard anyone support this idea. I mean our partners and allies,” he added.
Answering to Euronews Serbia’s question, PM Rama has emphasized that the future of the Western Balkans is in the EU and in order to achieve this, the sides, according to him, should collaborate in order to overcome their differences.
According to Rama, the Mini-schengen is the best example of this collaboration.
