TIRANA, October 21 – EU envoy Miroslav Lajcak and his US counterpart Gabriel Escobar met with Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti in Pristina on Saturday before they travelled to Belgrade, where they met Serb President Aleksandar Vucic.
Envoys representing the European Union and the United States have urged Kosovo and Serbia to resume talks in a bid to de-escalate soaring tensions between Belgrade and the breakaway territory.
It is the first such visit since 24 September when about 30 Serb gunmen crossed into northern Kosovo and killed a police officer.
“If there is no dialogue, there might be a repetition of escalation,” Lajcak said as quoted by Euronews.com after meeting with Kurti on Saturday.
Lajcak said they strongly denounced “the terrorist attack against Kosovo police by armed individuals [that] constitutes a clear and unprecedented escalation”. He added that the incident “very clearly underlined that both de-escalation and normalisation are now more urgent than ever”.
Western governments want Kosovo and Serbia to implement a 10-point plan put forward by the EU in February to end months of political crises.
Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic gave their approval at the time, but with some reservations that are yet to be resolved, mainly the establishment of the Association of the Serb-Majority Municipalities, or ASM.
The EU and US are pressuring Kosovo to allow for its creation to coordinate work on education, health care, land planning and economic development at the local level. Pristina fears the new association is an effort by Belgrade to create a Serb mini-state with wide autonomy, similar to Republika Srpska in Bosnia-Herzegovina. /argumentum.al
