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The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo have warned of inauspicious negotiations brokered by the EU on Thursday as Serbia’s president Aleksandar Vučić accused his reverse variety of “mendacity” about Belgrade’s plans to assault its neighbour.
Vučić and Kosovo’s prime minister Albin Kurti will maintain uncommon direct talks in Brussels on Thursday, weeks after disagreements between their two nations boiled over into border disturbances and assaults on cops, sparking fears of potential battle.
The EU and Nato have since stepped up strain on either side to de-escalate the tensions for worry of destabilising the broader Balkan area and south-east Europe, already shaken by nearly six months of struggle in Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion.
“We’re going to have tough discussions tomorrow. We don’t agree nearly on something,” Vučić stated after talks with Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday. Stoltenberg met Kurti individually afterwards and urged “all sides to point out restraint and to keep away from violence”.
Serbia doesn’t recognise the sovereignty of its former province, which declared independence in 2008. That got here 9 years after the Kosovo struggle, which ended after Nato bombed Serbia in response to Belgrade’s focused killing of Kosovan Albanians.
Belgrade claims that Pristina discriminates towards the Serbian minority dwelling primarily in northern Kosovo.
Kurti on Wednesday reiterated his warnings that Serbia poses a risk to his nation, with the encouragement of its ally Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“Kosovo’s establishments and residents . . . have purpose to be vigilant concerning the damaging method of our northern neighbour in the direction of Kosovo and the area typically,” he stated.
Vučić dismissed these warnings as “political narrative, a political rhetoric”.
“For 180 days we have now been listening . . . and it didn’t occur,” he stated. “Which implies they had been mendacity about it. And there was no rebuking of this narrative from anyplace on the earth.”
Highlighting simply how far aside their positions are forward of the EU-brokered talks, the nations have been unable to implement an settlement reached in June on entry to and fee for electrical energy provides.
In an interview this month Kurti stated Serbs within the north of Kosovo had not paid for electrical energy for many years, partly as a political protest, including that this price Pristina thousands and thousands of euros a month.
“I didn’t wish to minimize them off and trigger a disaster, and in addition give a pretext for Serbia to intervene or to hyperlink the north with its personal energy community — however this example is just not sustainable,” Kurti stated. “We’ve got made an settlement in June however it has not been carried out.”
Standing subsequent to Stoltenberg at a press convention at Nato’s headquarters on Wednesday, Vučić stated Kosovo and its worldwide backers should not “blackmail Serbia, or order Serbia find out how to act. It doesn’t work like that”.
“When you’ve gotten been put within the nook and don’t have any room to manoeuvre. please don’t anticipate Serbs to say they’re having fun with it and having a pleasant time,” he added. “We’d like a rational method . . . talks, a compromise answer.”
Nato has greater than 3,700 troops in Kosovo below a UN mandate to protect stability.
“If wanted, we are going to transfer forces, deploy them the place wanted and improve our presence,” Stoltenberg stated. “We’ve got already elevated the presence within the north. We’re able to do extra.”
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