“The Impact of the Serb-Majority Municipalities Merger on Kosovo-Serbia Relations: A Plea from Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) – Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti has urged western powers not to pressure his tiny Balkan country to accept a controversial merger of five Serb-majority municipalities that is escalating tensions between Kosovo and Serbia.

Kurti told The Associated Press that the focus should instead be on making Serbia more democratic and getting rid of what he called Belgrade’s hopes for regional leadership.

Kurti said in Sunday’s interview that the Serbian government should recognize Kosovo’s independence in order to “face the past”. He also stressed that Belgrade should turn to the European Union and NATO rather than Russia.

The prime minister said that if Belgrade abandons the idea that Kosovo still belongs to Serbia, “they will be much more democratic, European”.

The dispute between Serbia and its former province of Kosovo has remained a source of instability in the Balkans long after the 1998-99 war, which ended in a NATO intervention that forced Serbia to withdraw from the territory.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which Belgrade, with the support of Russia and China, refused to recognize. The US and most EU countries have recognized Kosovo.

In recent weeks, US and EU envoys have visited Pristina and Belgrade to encourage them to adopt a new proposal to normalize ties and boost their EU membership bids.

An EU-facilitated dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia has been ongoing since 2011, but few of the 33 agreements signed have been implemented.

“Each solution became more and more complicated, less and less feasible, and the public lost interest,” Kurti said of the negotiations so far. He viewed the new proposal as “a good framework and platform to move forward…which makes us hopeful about the prospects for future talks and an agreement”.

The details of the proposal have not yet been released.

US Ambassador to Pristina Jeffrey M. Hovenier told the Associated Press that the proposal is “an interim step that … would regulate relations in a very meaningful way and would be of tremendous benefit to both Kosovo and Serbia.”

“It is in the interest of both countries to change their relationship with each other,” he said.

The United States has increased pressure on Pristina to implement a 2013 agreement to establish the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities in ethnically Serb-dominated northern Kosovo, which will carry out work in education, health care, spatial planning and economic development at the local level would coordinate. In 2015, Kosovo’s Constitutional Court declared part of the plan unconstitutional, saying it failed to include other ethnic groups and could entail the use of executive powers.

Kurti says establishing the federation is not his priority, and last week he put conditions that it could only be established as part of an overall deal to normalize ties, which Serbia has rejected in the past. The Kosovar authorities fear that the country’s statehood will eventually be undermined with the help of Belgrade.

Western powers should learn from the example of the Serbian-led mini-state Republica Srpska in Bosnia, which fears the creation of a mini-state in Kosovo, he said, adding that Belgrade had used the formation of the association “as a weapon against our independence”.

“If we introduce the idea of ​​ethnically based community associations in the Western Balkans, that is a recipe for new conflicts,” said Kurti.

Western powers should not put pressure on smaller countries like Kosovo, he said. The problems between Kosovo and Serbia may be small and annoying, but the West should pay attention to what is going on in the region because “any kind of wrong solution in the Balkans can and will be used elsewhere”.

Tensions remain in northern Kosovo after Western powers helped resolve a tense situation in December when Serbs set up barricades on main roads to protest the arrest of a former Serb police officer.

Lars-Gunnar Wigemark, head of the EU’s rule of law mission in Kosovo, called the incident a “very tense standoff with barricades” and “the most serious crisis Kosovo has faced in the last decade”.

Another senior Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said the mediators are “working very hard” to avoid anything that might provoke demonstrations or violence.

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Llazar Semini, The Associated Press

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