Kosovo will respect its international obligations by implementing the measures agreed upon last week as part of a deal aimed at normalising relations with Serbia, Prime Minister Albin Kurti told lawmakers on Thursday.
Last Saturday, Pristina and Belgrade verbally agreed to implement a Western-backed plan for improving ties in the wake of the war of the late 1990’s and following decades of tense relations. Normalising relations is a condition both Balkan countries are expected to meet in speeding up their path to joining the European Union.
“If we want to be treated as a state and be recognised as such, I cannot avoid the obligations from the international treaties that we have agreed,” Kurti told lawmakers explaining the plan in parliament for the first time.
“I am convinced that it was impossible to reach any better text of the agreement in the situation we are in.”
Under the agreement, Kosovo has committed to give greater autonomy to areas of its country where Serbs make the majority, while Serbia has agreed not to block Kosovo’s membership in international organisations.
The EU pledged to organise a donor conference for both countries, with the disbursement of financial aid dependent on steps to improving ties. It is warning both sides not to cherry pick parts of the deal, but to implement it in full. Kurti has been a critic of previous agreements reached between Kosovo and Serbia, including those that stipulated more autonomy for Serb communities. Serbs account for about 5 percent of Kosovo’s population of 1.8 million.
The opposition is accusing Kurti of accepting what he had been against for almost a decade.
Meanwhile, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic warned last week that the “red lines” for Belgrade would be “the recognition of Kosovo as an independent state and Kosovo’s membership in the UN.”
Serbia is a candidate for EU membership yet to do so it must first normalise its relations with Pristina and implement an array of reforms.
The EU’s Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell, who brokered the deal on Saturday in North Macedonia’s coastal resort of Ohrid, remarked any attempt to question the agreement would be futile.
“The agreement was agreed, it has to be implemented, and there is no room for picking and choosing,” Borrell said in Brussels.”We will follow closely who is implementing and who is not implementing.”
The EU has already said that any party who would not respect the deal will face political isolation and lack of financial support from the wealthy bloc.
Ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo declared independence in 2008, but Serbia still considers it its southern province.
Source: TVP World
