How Kosovo and Serbia are doing?
After 22 years of presence, NATO is still needed in the Balkan country.
After the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the longest military mission by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has remained the KFOR mission in Kosovo. The mission has started with the bombing camping in spring 1999 and the subsequent military mission in the former Serbian province is still undergoing without signs of changes.
The NATO mission is still operated under the mandate of the UN Security Council resolution (1244/1999) and maintains currently 3,600 troops from 28 different countries. Even if the mission’s mandate seems frozen in time, the situation on the field is quite different and represents one of the few good examples of state-building, despite still the difficult relationship between the two main parties.
From the NATO and UN perspective seems things are still not changed and there are no signs that things are going to change soon with a withdrawal of the force is present in the territory. In fact, the relationship between the two main parties remains very tense, without a clear path towards the resolution of the status quo.
The last year the two parties seems very closed to find a solution when, together with former US President Donald Trump, the former Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti, and the Serbian President Alexander Vucic they signed the so-called Washington Agreement. The European Union and most of the main analysts were concerned about this latest agreement. Their critics of this incomplete agreement were true and in the last year, due also to a change of both administration in the US and Kosovo, the provisions of the document were never respected. The only real change was the Israel recognition of Kosovo as a country after Pristina opened its embassy in Jerusalem.
On the other hand, Serbia following a political line already followed, abstain from respecting the treaty. The only steps made were related to establishing a commercial relationship between the two countries and in avoid to persecute for one year pressuring states to withdraw their recognition of Kosovo.
Serbia, Albania, North Macedonia, in the meantime are trying to organise a new initiative, the so-called Open Balkans. The idea shared by these three countries is to replicate the open frontier and freedoms shared by the European Union. An initiative that has fount for the time being any appreciation from the Kosovo side or by Bosnia Hercegovina. The initiative is important to show a swift in the region towards new solutions instead of waiting for a sign from Bruxelles. A sign that the European Union should seriously take into consideration in reviewing its policy towards the Balkan region.
In the background not either the Bled security meeting at the end of August or the impeding new talks scheduled for September in Bruxelles made any steps in any directions. President Vucic, using a peculiar nationalistic attitude, is showing to the public the traditional position of any recognition of Kosovo as a country. Vucic keeps on with the Serbian politics of pleasing the European counterpart, pleasing the German chancellor, and expressing its will to increase the tides with the two economics.
On the Kosovo situation, just before the Bruxelles meeting, President Vucic reaffirm the unwillingness for Serbia to recognise Kosovo, but not only warned the Council of Europe of other institutions of not allowing any admission request from the former province. As was said before the one-year banned of any request for Kosovo has ceased to exist and most probably Pristina will search for new recognitions. To put more petrol on the fire, the two-year sentence to the former minister of the Sprska Lista (the main Serbian Party backed by Belgrade in Kosovo) Ivan Todosijevic for denying the Serbian massacre of Reçak/Račak, has sparked again the denounced of the so-called peace-mission as mentioned by President Vucic.
One of the main thematic on the table of the negotiation in Bruxelles is going to be solving the issue of the missing person status. However, both the Kosovar and Serbian climate before this negotiation made believe that no resolutive decision will be taken by both delegations. A negotiation was already also crippled by the cancellation of a direct meeting between president Vucic and Prime Minister Albin Kurti.
One of the issues seems the current president of the Serbia commission for the mission person Veljko Odalović, is considered and wanted by the Kosovo authorities for war crimes. A problem that already arose during the meetings in July and does not seems to be solved, creating a precondition for a failed meeting.
On the Kosovo side, the deputy Prime Minister Besnik Bislimi, head negotiator, announced the withdrawal of Kosovo from the 2011 agreement with Serbia on the recognition of the Kosovo plate. Even if the decision seems in line with the decision of the previous Hoti government to stop issuing KS plate (the plate recognised also by the Serbian authorities) seems more a move to show the unwillingness of Kosovo to follow with the previous policies towards the dialogue with Serbia. A decision in line with the reciprocity foreign policy idea that Kurti’s government has on multiple occasions already shows its intention to take.
Moreover, Kosovo seems again to resuming to pressure other nations to recognize it, last week President Vjosa Osmani called the Indian government asking for support for future recognition. Osmani late this week repeated once more in an interview with the Suddeutche Zeitung also the complete refusal of establishing any Association of Serbian Municipality in Kosovo. Overall, there aren’t any surprises on them and the Kosovo policy, despite the announcement on the theme of reciprocity, seems stable and following previous set tracks.
Interestingly enough, Prime Minister Albin Kurti, after a talk with the German Chancellor in Tirana, has announced again the intention for Kosovo to reintroduce reciprocity measures with Serbia, measures that still need to be properly codified. Interesting sparks for the future: the relation between Albania and Kosovo is quite cold at the moment due to the Kosovo opposition on the matter of the Open Balkan forum. On the other hand the opening of the trial in The Hague against Salih Mustafa, former KLA commander can have a serious repercussion even in Pristina.
From an outside point of view it seems that the Bruxelles negotiations meetings just keep happening with indifference by both parties, as just a sign of goodwill to keep open the dialogue but nothing more. The covid situation for sure hasn’t helped things and the situation in both countries is developing and its economic and social effects will not be easy to be recover. But, what seems that can really change the situation right now is more a surprise move, a proposal, could be better by one of by both countries, capable of reshuffling the card on the table. Until then most probably the situation will remain the same, with periodical meetings in Bruxelles followed by inflaming declaration against each other for then coming back a status quo. In this overall picture what is truly missing seems more the incapacity to solve the problem for the common citizens who travel or how effects or business among the two countries or has still relatives messing from the war.