Using superlatives praising the US mediated agreement between Kosovo and Serbia of September 4, the former PM and first President of Albania, Sali Berisha has arrived at the conclusion that Albanians have come out as absolute winners from the deal.
Different political circles in both Kosovo and Serbia, the parties which are involved in the talks sponsored by the United States that led to the recognition of Kosovo by Israel and the controversial establishment of the embassies of Belgrade and Pristina to Jerusalem, are reviewing and questioning the expected benefits and losses from what has been produced at the White House.
In the meantime the EU which Albania and Kosovo aspire to join has officially criticized Belgrade for the decision to transfer its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
“Albanians have come out absolutely victorious by the agreement of Washington between Kosovo and Serbia,” said Berisha in an interview with a local TV on Monday.
In the meantime he claimed that Albania’s PM Edi Rama, Serbia’s President Aleksander Vucic and Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaci were in favor of the division of Kosovo as confirmed by Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser, John Bolton.
In addition Berisha went into details of delicate issues of the agreement like that of the lake of Ujman (Gazivoda Lake) advising that the question of the use of the waters should be resolved between the parties. He went further in his analysis of those who have made comments of this lake referring to so-called ‘albanophobes’ who, according to him, wanted to give Trepca as a present to Serbia.
In a confused comment on the question of the establishment of the Mini Shengen in the Western Balkans, an initiative launched by Rama and Vucic, strongly opposed by him, Berisha gave up his opposition because se he said “it has seemed reasonable for Americans in line with their philosophy of free movement.”
He praised Kosovo PM Abdullah Hoti who, as the former head of DP said, represented Kosovo in a dignified and civilized way.
With regard to the recognition of Kosovo by Israel, when as Vucic said after returning from Washington nothing is final, Berisha declared that every Albanian should consider that as something ‘extraordinary’. /argumentum.al