Kurti: Negotiations with Serbia at an impasse

Kosovo Prime Minister Aljbin Kurti assessed that the negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia, with the mediation of the EU, became so one-sided that they reached an impasse and accused Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić of insulting him, and European mediators for not trying to prevent it.

In an interview with Britain's Guardian published today, Kurti said that continued instability has made the region "a playground for the geopolitical games of the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China."

Kurti described his last failed meeting with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić on September 14 in Brussels as a debacle, adding that EU special envoy Miroslav Lajčak "lost his neutrality".

According to Kurti, Lajčak failed to convey Serbia's written negotiating position to the citizens of Kosovo, but it was presented to them only after the negotiations were interrupted. Kurti said the document was more than six months old.

"There is no further progress with this method. The September 14 meeting showed the limits of the old methods," Kurti said.

As the Guardian reports, the Kosovo Prime Minister accused Vučić of insulting him during the conversation, which, he said, had become a regular occurrence without any attempt by mediators to prevent it.

"He often insulted and cursed in Serbian during these two years... I asked the mediators to stop him and to condemn him, but that never happens," said Kurti.

The Guardian reminds that, according to the announcement of the cabinet of the President of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani, at the summit in Moldova on June 1, which was attended by the President of France Emmanuel Macron, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Policy and Security Josep Borelj, Vučić insulted the President of Kosovo.

"He addressed the president of Kosovo and the staff in her entourage with the derogatory and insulting term 'rats'," said Bljerim Velja, Osmanijeva's chief of staff. "Vučić's tantrums reflect his personality and his inability to accept different opinions," he added.

One source said that although Macron and Soltz could not understand what Vucic was saying, his body language showed that he was irritated and did not want to be in the same room with the Kosovars.

Kurti would not specify which epithets the Serbian president allegedly used against him, but Kosovo diplomats say one of the offensive words used in earlier meetings was "Shiptar", a derogatory name for Kosovo Albanians in the Serbian language.

"Like a school bully who is honored by the school administration, except in this case the school bully committed genocide and is a staunch ally of Putin," Kurti said.

The Office of the President of Serbia did not respond to requests for comment.

The Guardian reports that since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Kosovo believes that the priority has shifted to ensure that Serbia does not fall further under Russian influence.

Pristina claims that the EU and the US have focused their criticism on Kurti's government for not establishing an association of Serb-majority municipalities to give greater autonomy to Serb areas, while Kurti refuses to back down without corresponding steps from Serbia, stressing that nothing in Vučić's behavior suggests that he can be trusted, adds the paper.

Kurti told the Guardian that he went to the last meeting on September 14 with proposals on the sequence of steps of the Kosovo and Serbian sides.

According to him, Lajcak, the EU envoy, said that the proposals would not work because they contradict Serbia's position, and when the Kosovo prime minister asked to see the paper with Serbia's position, Lajcak said that it was given to Kurti's deputy before the meeting.

The deputy, however, said he had received nothing, so Kurti went to confront Lajcak, who then said his team was still trying to retrieve the document from its files.

According to Kurti, it turned out that the missing document was drawn up by Serbia even before the March agreement and that it insists that there is no progress until Kurti forms the Association of Serbian Municipalities, and Lajčak unquestioningly accepted Serbian conditions.

"That's why I was appalled. I was shocked," Kurti said. "I don't think the EU27 was informed about it. They entrusted this very important job to this person who lost their neutrality," he said.

Lajčak's office did not want to comment on Kurti's version of events.

The EU's chief foreign affairs spokesman said the Kurti report "does not reflect the truth and is inaccurate". He said that the 27 member states reiterated their full support for the dialogue, Borel, who is leading the talks, and Lajcak. He criticized Kurti for breaching confidentiality.

"Twenty-seven EU member states also reminded Mr Kurti of his responsibility to respect the principle of confidentiality in the dialogue, which is a key component of any politically sensitive negotiation process," the spokesman said, according to the Guardian.