Osmani: The reluctance to admit Kosovo to NATO and the EU destabilizes the region

2023-12-22 14:49:40, Kosova & Bota CNA

Osmani: The reluctance to admit Kosovo to NATO and the EU destabilizes the

The President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani

The President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, said on Friday that the reluctance to accept her country in the NATO military alliance and in the European Union (EU) leaves open the possibility for the destabilization "not only of Kosovo, but of the region and beyond". .

Speaking at a joint press conference with the president of Bulgaria, Rumen Radev, in Pristina, Osmani said that Kosovo counts on Bulgarian support for membership in the bloc.

"The courageous leadership and decisive actions of our allies in the Euro-Atlantic family to accelerate the merit-based admission of the democratic countries of the region to the EU and NATO, because any hesitation would create a vacuum for malicious actors to destabilize not only Kosovo, but also the region beyond", Osmani said.

Kosovo applied for EU membership last year, but was reprimanded by the European Commission in its annual report in November for "limited progress" and for not implementing agreements reached in the dialogue with Serbia.

The Bulgarian president said that, while his country supports Kosovo and the entire Western Balkans region for membership in the bloc, it demands that Kosovo and Serbia agree on the normalization of relations.

"Bulgaria will continue to support Kosovo for its membership in the Council of Europe as soon as possible. Bulgaria is one of the engines for the integration of all Western Balkan countries into the EU. We cannot allow ourselves to leave Kosovo in the background, even more so in the field of security", said Radev.

He added that reaching an agreement on the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina "is important for the security, stability and well-being of our region".

The situation in the north of Kosovo, inhabited by a majority of Serbs, remains tense since the beginning of this year, when local Serbs opposed the Albanian mayors in the four majority-Serb municipalities, which emerged from the elections boycotted by the Serbs in April.

On September 24, the situation escalated after the Kosovo Police was attacked by an armed group of Serbs in the village of Banjské in Zveçan, where police officer Afrim Bunjaku was killed. During the clashes that followed, three Serbian attackers were also killed.

Kosovo has blamed Serbia for the attack, but Belgrade has denied involvement in it.

Radev said that Bulgaria continues to insist on dialogue as the only way to solve problems and at the same time implement all agreements between Kosovo and Serbia.

"We think that this is the only way. We exclude armed provocations and violence. We insist that the EU has an active role for intensive dialogue and finding solutions", he added.

Osmani said that there is a tendency from some countries to misuse the measures that the European Union decided at the beginning of this year towards Kosovo, to "condition it on completely different issues".

Earlier in the year, the EU imposed punitive measures against Kosovo following rising tensions in northern Kosovo, where local residents oppose new Albanian mayors.

"As for the measures, they had to be removed, in fact they never had to be put in place, despite the disagreements that existed between the Government of Kosovo and the partners in the EU regarding May 26", said Osmani.

She insisted that Kosovo has fulfilled the conditions for lifting the measures, saying that "what was requested from Kosovo for what they called de-escalation have happened".

"There is a tendency by some that now the measures are being misused as a way to condition Kosovo on issues completely different from the reason for which they were decided in the beginning. I opposed such an approach at the EU-Western Balkans summit on December 13," she added.

She believes that such conditioning "will only have a negative impact"./ REL