BRUSSELS – During the first high-level meeting after the Ohrid agreement, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Prime Minister of Kosovo Albin Kurti adopted a Declaration on Missing Persons, but the two leaders once again failed to reach any deal on the Association of Serb Municipalities (ASM).
Kurti underlined after the meeting once again that the presented draft statute of ASM is contrary to Kosovo’s constitution, while Vucic said that “talks hit a wall”.
EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Josep Borrell assessed that the adoption of the Declaration on Missing Persons and the fact that the first draft statute of the ASM was presented were “good news”, adding that the situation on the ground could undermine the implementation of the recently reached agreements.
“I didn’t expect anything else. I was sure that the parties had different views on the nature of the Association Community of [Serb-majority] municipalities. But, even if they disagreed, they agreed to start negotiations on the statute of this Association/Community in the near future, taking this first draft as a starting point for the discussions”, Borrell stressed.
Prime Minister of Kosovo Albin Kurti said that he presented his own framework for the association, adding it adheres to the proper values and principles and should be treated seriously by mediators.
Kurti criticized the draft presented by the EU consisting that 67 articles, calling it “fundamentally incompatible with the Constitution, legality, democracy, European values, human and minority rights according to European standards”.
Kurti said that during the meeting he also submitted a document on how from February 27, when the basic agreement between Kosovo and Serbia was reached, Serbia violated it.
The Serbian President told reporters that Belgrade accepted the EU draft statute of the ASM, but that Pristina rejected it. Speaking after the meeting with Kurti, he said that he does not see a solution at present and that he is not optimistic.
“I’m worried, and it is clear that Pristina does not want to fulfill its commitments from ten years ago. I knew and understood that. But today, we have hit a wall,” Vučić said. /Argumentum.al
