The Association is a way to unwind Serbia’s control of the north and increase the Kosovo government’s reach there, Gabriel Escobar said in Pristina today.
“Under your constitution, under your legal structure. I see it as an opportunity to move forward, I don’t understand why anybody would see it differently because the Association, at the end of the day, even though it was negotiated between Serbia and Kosovo, is not necessarily a concession to Serbia. It is an acknowledgment of a need of a minority community.”
The US special envoy, and the European mediator for the Western Balkans and the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, Gabriel Escobar and Miroslav Lajcak, have ended their two-day stay in Pristina. The reason behind their visit was to de-escalate the crisis that began on May 26th after the Kosovo PM, Albin Kurti, ignored the warnings of the international community, and ordered special police units to occupy three municipal buildings in the north. They are currently on their way to Belgrade, where they are set to discuss the same issue with the Serbian president.
In order to address the latest crisis in the north, the highest representatives of Kosovo’s Western partners reiterated their demands to Kosovo Prime Minister – to immediately deescalate the crisis in the north and then proceed with the implementation of the Ohrid Agreement and to form the ASM.
De-escalation involves the withdrawal of police forces from municipal buildings in Zvecan, Leposavic and Zubin Potok, so that the mayors continue to carry out their, as they call it, „administrative“ mandate from alternate locations, and to call local elections with the guaranteed participation of Srpska Lista.
The US-European duo reiterated today that they have been in crisis management mode for months now instead of working on the implementation of agreements.
The position of the USA reads that the agreement must be implemented immediately.
“For Kosovo, their only do out is the ASM. We cannot ignore the Association, it’s in the Brussels agreement, the Ohrid agreement, and the European Council conclusions.”
Escobar has no doubt that the ASM will be formed, the only question is „who“ will do it. He also underlined that it can be done in one day.
The US official shared the model he would like to see in Kosovo – when it comes to the ASM.
“I am somewhat a recipient, beneficiary of something like an Association. My mother votes in Spanish, gets her driver’s license in Spanish, she gets her medical care in Spanish, and it doesn’t threaten the constitutionality of the United States. That’s the model that I would like to see for the Association. It is really about providing municipal services to people in their own language, in a way they can understand.”
Escobar repeatedly stressed that the Kosovo Serbian community has its „legitimate concerns“, that as „dual citizens“ of Serbia and Kosovo, they have the right to participate in the social and political life of both Kosovo and Serbia.
“There really are people who have already made the choice to remain in Kosovo, when they could have left. And yet they are struggling to make their voice heard. That is fundamentally a challenge for a multiethnic civic democracy to address. You cannot say that all Serbs are for us or against us, helpful or unhelpful. There are a lot of voices in that community that need to be heard,” Escobar said.
Read more:
Escobar in Pristina: If you turn your back on this agreement, you’ve turned your back on Europe
Escobar: The international community is not going to let another conflict happen again
Escobar: Whenever we talk to Kurti and Bislimi, they only want to talk about Serbia
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