Kosovo and Serbia have reached an agreement on the functionalization of the Joint Commission on Missing Persons, Kosovo’s chief negotiator Besnik Bislimi confirmed on Thursday evening following a full day of EU-mediated talks in Brussels.
According to Bislimi, the agreement was achieved during meetings facilitated by the European Union and aims to finally implement the Declaration on Missing Persons signed in 2023 by Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić.
“The goal was to agree on making the commission operational in order to implement the agreement on missing persons between Prime Minister Kurti and President Vučić,” Bislimi told Koha shortly after the talks. “The meetings were successful, and we have finally ensured that this objective will come to life. In the coming weeks, our deputies will meet to determine the first priorities of the joint commission’s work.”
Bislimi said the discussions were mostly held in bilateral format with the EU’s Special Envoy for the Kosovo–Serbia dialogue, Peter Sorensen, and focused on the implementation of the 2023 Declaration and the establishment of the commission itself. Other issues, he added, are expected to be addressed after the formation of a new government in Kosovo.
Pristina has previously accused Belgrade of blocking the process and effectively withdrawing from commitments related to the missing persons agreement.
Belgrade Silent on “Agreement”
While Kosovo officials presented the outcome of the Brussels talks as a concrete step toward operationalizing the Joint Commission, pro-government media in Serbia emphasized the difficult nature of the discussions and shifted focus to the urgency of establishing the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities (ASM).
Serbia’s chief negotiator and head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Petar Petković, said that the “first meeting” of the Joint Commission for the implementation of the Declaration on Missing Persons had been held in Brussels, stressing that the talks were challenging.
“This is extremely important and significant, and I hope that after this first meeting everything will accelerate in the direction of finding all missing persons,” Petković said, according to Tanjug. He added that Belgrade had fought for years for such a meeting to take place.
“We fought for every comma, every letter in numerous agreements on missing persons. I hope that today we are giving additional hope to all families who are still waiting to learn the truth about the fate of their loved ones,” he said.
Petković emphasized that, for Belgrade, the issue of missing persons is strictly humanitarian and not political. He explained that the Joint Commission serves as a political support body to the Working Group, while the Working Group itself—operating under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross—remains the main mechanism for locating missing persons.
At the same time, Petković said he insisted during the talks on the urgent formation of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities and highlighted what he described as the difficult position of Serbs in Kosovo.
“I particularly insisted on the formation of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities and on the need to urgently begin discussions on its statute,” he said, warning that continued unilateral actions by Pristina could endanger both the Serbian community in Kosovo and regional stability.
Belgrade expects further meetings of the Joint Commission to take place within the next ten days, Petković added.
However, Serbian media reports did not mention any agreement on the functionalization of the commission, as stated by Bislimi in his remarks to Albanian-language media.
EU Remains Reserved
The European Union has not issued an official statement on the outcome of the talks. Earlier in the day, EU officials confirmed only that a new round of dialogue on the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia would take place, noting that further details would be shared after the meetings concluded.
Long-Delayed Process
This marks the first high-level meeting of the Joint Commission since the adoption of th Declaration on Missing Persons in 2023. The declaration committed both sides to cooperate in locating and identifying hundreds of people still listed as missing from the Kosovo conflict.
In December 2024, Bislimi and Petković agreed to establish the commission to implement the declaration. However, no progress was reported until now, aside from an announced working group meeting in Geneva on June 26, whose outcome remains unclear.
Kosovo officials have stated that Serbia declined participation in several EU-convened meetings in 2025. Meanwhile, EU Special Envoy Peter Sorensen, who has overseen the dialogue since last year, recently had his mandate extended for at least two more years.
More than 26 years after the war, around 1,600 people are still missing from the conflict in Kosovo, making the issue one of the most sensitive and unresolved aspects of the Kosovo–Serbia dialogue.
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