The German government has decided to temporarily put on hold its cooperation with Pristina in various sectors until the “Kosovo government takes respective measures to de-escalate,” the German embassy to Pristina confirmed for KoSSev.
These measures follow a previous decision to apply restrictive measures toward Pristina, which came into force last week, a month after the new crisis in the north of Kosovo started began to escalate.
The German government decided to “temporarily put on hold its cooperation with Kosovo in various sectors.”
“The measures include, for example, the postponement of Government consultations on development cooperation, a put on-hold of an envisaged bilateral climate partnership and the hand-over of specific equipment to security providers.”
On the other hand, the embassy underlined that projects with civil society sector as well as projects that we have already started to implement remain untouched.
They added that measures can be withdrawn at any moment:
This requires implementing the urgently needed measures to deescalate the situation in the northern municipalities
The German embassy underscored that they “explicitly” support the EU’s efforts, the EU Special Representative Lajcak’s work as well as the EU-facilitated Dialogue.
KoSSev sent this same question to other Quint members, however, at the time that this story was published, no answer was forthcoming.
The latest crisis in the north, caused by the forcible entry of ethnic Albanian mayors into the municipal buildings of Leposavic, Zvecan and Zubin Potok, accompanied by strong forces of the Kosovo Police, has been ongoing for almost two months now.
Local Serbs have been protesting the move for almost as long in front of municipal buildings in these three municipalities – during the second day of protests in the municipality of Zvecan, a conflict between Serbs and members of KFOR, who have been stationed at these sites since then, broke out.
Strong forces of the Kosovo Police are stationed inside the municipal premises, Leposavic being the exception, where the elected Albanian mayor has been holed up in the municipal building for almost two months.
Tensions further increased following the arrest of at least eight ethnic Serbs, who were apprehended both in connection with the incidents during these two months, as well as for alleged earlier crimes.
For weeks, the international community has been calling on Pristina to make the first move, by withdrawing the mayor and police from the municipalities and calling new local elections for four northern municipalities. On the other hand, Serbs are urged to participate in these elections without preconditions.
When it comes to requests presented to the Kosovo PM, Kurti responded on two occasions with his own proposals, the key of which is that he will make the first moves as per the rule of law when the protesters withdraw.
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
