Damon Wilson, executive vice president at the Atlantic Council, told N1 that the world was moving on fast and it was really “in the interest of Serbia and Kosovo to close that chapter so that they can compete in the future otherwise their populations are going to vote with their feet and leave” their countries.
After meeting Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic, Wilson said in an interview that “as long as there’s an absence of progress on the dialogue (between Belgrade and Pristina), we will continue to be vulnerable to bouts of escalation, to incidents that can spin out of control, to recriminations and this is just oxygen for the bad guys, for organised crime or third party forces that want to disrupt it.”
He said he thought “Vucic has done some remarkable things to demonstrate that he is serious about trying to find an agreement,” but, Wilson added he also thought “that at the same time, Serbia has it both ways sometimes.”
“I told Vucic that in many respects he is not in a bad position because there is concern about the steps the Kosovo authorities are taking,” he added.
Wilson said that neither the US nor the European Union were not going to force Kosovo and Serbia to do anything. “It’s just not going to happen. We can’t force.”
“We have a commitment to create CSM (Community of Serbian Municipalities) that has not been delivered on. That is a problem. We have 100 percent tariffs on Serbian goods. Political leaders in Kosovo are reacting to Serbian efforts to block Kosovo’s membership in international organisations like Interpol. These tariffs create a very bad situation. We need to put these things to the side. We need a moratorium that returns to the status quo so that the parties can focus on what really matters – coming to an agreement.
