Serbia-Kosovo talks fail to progress, each side blames the other

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The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo have traded pikes in a series of talks that highlighted the differences between the two former Yugoslav entities and failed to bring them closer to resolving one of the most important territorial disputes. thorniest in Europe.

In Brussels for the second time in a month, the July 19 talks between Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic are part of decade-long negotiations aimed at resolving disputes that continue to tarnish relations more than 20 years after the 99 Kosovo War.

But after just a few hours, EU envoy Miroslav Lajcak came away from the meeting with the blunt assessment that “we have made very little progress today”.

“The meeting was difficult and it demonstrated very different approaches from the two sides to the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia,” he said.

“As far as the EU is concerned, it is important to stress that the European future of Serbia and Kosovo depends on the normalization of their relations and that they are supposed to work together to overcome the past and resolve the current problems between them, “says Lajcak.

Kosovo, a former Serbian province, declared independence in 2008 after a 1998-99 conflict between ethnic Albanian separatist rebels and Serbian forces. The war ended after a 78-day NATO air campaign that drove out Serbian troops and a peacekeeping force intervened.

Washington and Brussels have both said standardization is essential for their further integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions. Both Serbia and Kosovo are seeking EU membership, and Kosovo is also seeking NATO membership.

Kosovo’s independence has been recognized by more than 100 countries, including the United States and all but five of the 27 member states of the European Union. But Serbia still considers the territory to be its southern province, and is supported by Russia and China.

Kurti said the atmosphere had changed little since the first meeting on June 15 and that Serbia had to face its past first before it could look to the future.

“The reason why we don’t have a common position is that the Serbian side rejected the phrase ‘facing the past’ even though it was accepted by the European side,” Kurti said, adding that Vucic personally “has a problem with the past.”

For his part, Vucic blamed the lack of progress on his counterpart, saying Serbia had accepted all three negotiating points suggested by the EU and Kosovo had not hosted any.

“We are not talking about a rational principle, but we are talking to people who only ask Serbia’s responsibility for a geocode in the continuum. That’s all they care about.”

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