By ANDREW RETTMAN AND EKREM KRASNIQI
BRUSSELS- The US is pushing Kosovo and Serbia to make a peace deal, over a year after the last EU-led talks took place.
In a new gambit, senior American personalities threatened to pull out American troops from Kosovo unless it made concessions.
“Now, with historic progress in sight, Kosovo must do its part and abolish all duties imposed on Serbia. If Kosovo is not fully committed to peace, then the US should reconsider its presence there,” David Perdue, a Republican US senator, tweeted on Tuesday (10 March).
Rand Paul, another Republican senator, also tweeted: “I encourage Kosovo to turn a page, and work with Serbia for a lasting peace. Time to bring our troops home after so many years over there”.
Perdue’s comments were retweeted by Richard Grenell, a US special envoy on the Western Balkans, causing alarm in Kosovo.
The US president’s son, 42-year old businessman Donald Trump Jr., also retweeted Perdue, adding: “There are 650 US troops in Kosovo. Time to get them home”.
Perdue’s reference to “duties” comes after Kosovo imposed a steep tax on Serbian imports in 2018 because Serbia blocked its recognition by international bodies.
The 650 US troops are the largest contingent out of 3,526 soldiers in a Nato peacekeeping force in Kosovo.
“Nato remains fully committed to our Kfor [Kosovo Force] mission, which … continues to provide a safe and secure environment and freedom of movement for all communities in Kosovo,” a Nato official said in reaction to the US tweets.
The US pressure comes after EU-led Kosovo-Serbia talks on “normalising relations” stalled in November 2018.
Kosovo president Hashim Thaçi and Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić sometimes rubbed shoulders at international events, such as the Munich Security Conference.
But the formal EU-led talks never resumed even though EU foreign relations chief Josep Borrell called for it in Pristina and Belgrade in January.
At the same time, Grenell managed to organise talks between Thaçi and Vučić at the White House on 3 March.
“America has finally taken over the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia [from the EU]”, Thaçi said in Washington.
Grenell, who is also the US ambassador to Germany and acting director of US national intelligence, declined to comment on whether Thaçi was right when contacted by EUobserver.
His own retweet of Perdue should not be seen as a threat to pull out US troops, Grenell said. And recent reports by Kosovo newspaper Bota Sot that a draft US deal included the option of a territorial swap between Kosovo and Serbia were untrue, he added.
“Of course not,” an EU foreign service spokesman said when also asked about Thaçi’s remarks on the US taking over the peace process.
The EU spokesman “welcomed” the US “engagement”. But “the EU is the only internationally tasked facilitator of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue … No one else is organising it,” the spokesman said, citing a UN mandate for the EU’s work.
“The talks the leaders from Serbia and Kosovo might have had in the US were not part of the EU-facilitated dialogue,” the EU spokesman said.
“Nato also fully supports the continuation of the EU-facilitated dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina,” the Nato official added. Some EU sources believed the White House was pushing for a quick deal on Kosovo and Serbia, even if it came at the cost of UN mandates, as in Israel.
But whoever was in charge, the EU foreign service voiced a gentler approach than the US.
“We cannot force them [Thaçi and Vučić] to sit down behind one table if they do not want to,” the EU spokesman said.
Land swap
Talk of a land swap between Kosovo and Serbia has in the past attracted fierce criticism from Germany, which warned that border changes just 20 years after the Western Balkan wars could destabilise the region.
German chancellor Angela Merkel has also tried to seize the initiative and invited Kosovar and Serbian leaders to Berlin next week.The US diplomatic formula is that it is up to the two parties, Belgrade and Pristina, to decide on territories, leaving the door open for the land-swap option.
And whether the US or the EU foreign service was in charge, that option appeared to be on the table either way.
When asked if the EU foreign service backed the idea, the EU spokesman said: “The objective here is full normalisation of relations through a legally-binding agreement”.
“The content, extent, nature, and scope of such an agreement is to be determined by the two main actors (Belgrade and Pristina)”, he said. /EUobserver
