Albanian Language Media:

• Kurti and Vucic to meet in Brussels today (media)
• Lajcak: A statute acceptable for both parties is needed (media)
• Selmanaj: Constitutional Court must have final say (media)
• Kurti commemorates Studime massacre; 116 Albanians civilians were killed (media)
• Decision to open Ibar bridge sent to Ministry of Local Government (Insajderi)
• Rasic: Media in Serbia close to government constantly attack me (media)

Serbian Language Media:

• EU’s Lajcak says not right moment to open bridge in Mitrovica North (N1, RTS)
• KFOR: Ibar Bridge opening an issue that should be resolved in political dialogue (Kosovo Online)
• Milan Radojevic: Only Serbs can make decision on bridge opening in Mitrovica (Tanjug, social media)
• Vucic ahead of Brussels meeting with Kurti, says it will be difficult (Radio KIM, media)
• Dacic: Pristina to continue to avoid establishment of ZSO (Tanjug, media)
• Petkovic: It is not up to Kurti to allow or not allow something for CSM (ZSO) (RTS, Beta, Danas) 
• Anniversary of NATO attack on bus near Luzane marked yesterday (RTS, Radio kontakt plus, Gracanica-online)
• Visoki Decani Monastery: Robberies becoming more frequent (Radio KIM)
• The Declaration on the Missing, first on the agenda of the new round of dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina (BBC)
• The director of the “Dajana Paunovic” Foundation banned from entering Kosovo (Tanjug)        

Albanian Language Media  

Kurti and Vucic to meet in Brussels today (media)

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic will meet in Brussels today for a new round of talks on the normalisation of relations. The last time the two leaders met was in Ohrid on March 19 when they agreed on the implementation of what is known as the Basic Agreement, and which should lead to the normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. But after the meeting, the parties had different interpretations of their obligations, while the EU insisted that they are obliged to implement all points of the agreement. The EU also warned that the failure to implement them would be followed with consequences.

Radio Free Europe reports that EU officials confirmed that there are two main points on the agenda of today’s meeting: the adoption of the Declaration on Missing Persons and presentation of the first draft statute of the Association/Community of Serb majority municipalities in Kosovo. “After these two topics, we will see how much we can discuss other issues too,” EU spokesperson Peter Stano said.

Albanian Post quotes a source close to the negotiating process in Brussels as saying: “Kosovo and Serbia are starting the process of negotiations on what the Association and Self-Management is and what the Association and Self-Management is not. It will start tomorrow [today] and it will end sometime in September, October”. The source also said that the current content of the draft statute for the Association, is unacceptable for the Kosovo side.

Nacionale highlights that representatives of opposition parties in Kosovo have expressed concerns about the Association of Serb-majority municipalities on the eve of today’s meeting in Brussels. Deputy leader of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), Lutfi Haziri, said in a Facebook post that Prime Minister Kurti “will be presented with a draft statute without even meeting the working group of Kosovo, without knowing the composition of the working group, without knowing what they have worked on or the level of the draft statute”. He also argued that Kurti had tried to make several camouflages in the process but that he failed. “With the Ohrid agreement, Kurti tried to camouflage it as an amendment of the 2013-2015 agreement. Half of the current government says there is no Association, the other half says there is. With international mediation, it reached an agreement, while in front of the MPs it revealed ‘traitors’, and before the people it has done nothing,” Haziri said. Secretary of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), Betim Gjoshi, said today that Kurti is not saying who wrote the draft statute of the Association. “Everybody knows and is saying what is going to happen on May 2, but only Albin Kurti is trying to keep it a secret. On May 2, Albin Kurti is implementing the Zajednica [Association]!” Gjoshi argued.

Ekonomia Online talked to several citizens in Pristina today and they were not optimistic that an agreement can be reached in Brussels today. They argued that they don’t believe that Serbia will cooperate on the issue of missing persons. They also said they hoped the Kosovo side would not agree to the Association of Serb-majority municipalities, because according to them Serbs have greater rights than Albanians in Kosovo.

Lajcak: A statute acceptable for both parties is needed (media)

EU Special Representative for the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, Miroslav Lajcak, said today before the new round of talks that the statute of the Association of Serb-majority municipalities must be acceptable for both parties and in line with European standards.

“The management team will present a layout. We don’t know what it includes, but it should be the beginning of the process. In the end, we should have a statute that is acceptable for both parties, Kosovo and Serbia, and in line with European standards. This is the first important step,” he said.

“We are here to implement what has been agreed upon during the dialogue. It was not imposed, it was agreed between Serbia and Kosovo in 2013. For us, it is important for every solution to be European,” Lajcak added. “We need to implement what has been agreed upon earlier, but at the same time draw from practical solutions of existing European models. We don’t want to create something that hasn’t been tested anywhere else in the world, and we want the parties to find inspiration in well-functioning European models”.

Selmanaj: Constitutional Court must have final say (media)

MP from the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), Driton Selmanaj, said on Monday that Kosovo will face unpredictable consequences if the document that is discussed between Kosovo Prime Minister Kurti and Serbian President Vucic in Brussels about the Association of Serb-majority municipalities, fails to include the point of the 2015 agreement whereby the Constitutional Court should have the final say on interpreting the decree and statute of the Association. “Without the insurance that that point gives to the Constitutional Court, and through it to Kosovo too, Albin Kurti will threaten the legal order, the principle of unitarity and the territorial integrity of Kosovo,” Selmanaj said.

Kurti commemorates Studime massacre; 116 Albanians civilians were killed (media)

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said today on the 24th anniversary of the massacre in Studime where Serbian forces executed 116 Albanian civilians. “Our past is crucial for our present and our future. The blood that was shed cannot be erased, the same way that Serbia’s crimes in Kosovo cannot be erased. I call on our judicial system to work on shedding light on the truth. Sentences for war criminals and justice for the victims,” Kurti wrote in a Facebook post.

Decision to open Ibar bridge sent to Ministry of Local Government (Insajderi)

Members of the municipal assembly of Mitrovica North adopted on Thursday the request to open the main bridge over Ibar River for traffic. The decision to open the bridge has already been submitted to the Ministry of Local Government today. The news website claims to have the decision sent to the ministry and it notes that it was adopted by a majority of votes. Insajderi contacted the ministry but received no comment yet. 

Emir Azemi, a former PDK counsellor in the municipal assembly, told the news website that according to his information, the decision to reopen the bridge was sent to the Ministry of Interior Affairs and the Ministry of Local Government. He said the decision is legitimate because it was voted by the municipal assembly and that there is no reason to postpone it.

Rasic: Media in Serbia close to government constantly attack me (media)

Kosovo’s Minister for Communities and Returns, Nenad Rasic, argued in an interview with T7 that media in Serbia that are close to the government there constantly attack him. He said he is also attacked by politicians and heads of Serbian institutions. 

Rasic also said that he made an offer to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to come and live in Kosovo for a month. “I made an offer to Vucic. Mr. President, if you can come here, and after one month here, say the same things about me and my fellow citizens, I will leave politics and never deal with you again. I wanted to let him know that he can talk about Kosovo, but he can never know what life is like for the Kosovo Serbs here. Only those who live here with their families know this,” he said.

Serbian Language Media 

EU’s Lajcak says not right moment to open bridge in Mitrovica North (N1, RTS)

This is not a good moment to open the bridge over the Ibar River for traffic, the EU special envoy for Belgrade-Pristina dialogue Miroslav Lajcak said, responding to the Mitrovica North municipal council demand for the opening of the bridge dividing the town into the majority-Serb north and majority-Albanian south, N1 reports.

Lajcak stressed that this could cause another crisis.

According to the public broadcaster RTS, Lajcak also said that the atmosphere is “obviously not good for that” and that “red lines must be respected”.

Speaking at the Delphi Forum 2023 in Greece, the envoy said that the Ohrid agreement is the right platform and “dual victory,” because, as he said, both sides have benefited from it.

The demand to open the bridge across the Ibar River was submitted by a councillor from Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s Self-determination party even though it was not on the agenda of the meeting. The only Serb on the council voted against it and the demand was adopted by the Albanian majority. The municipal assembly was elected in December in a vote boycotted by the local Serbs.

KFOR: Ibar Bridge opening an issue that should be resolved in political dialogue (Kosovo Online)

NATO-lead KFOR Mission said re-opening of a bridge over the Ibar River in Mitrovica is an issue that should be resolved in political dialogue, Kosovo Online portal reports citing Pristina-based Nacionale.

KFOR said they continue monitoring local developments and stay focused on every day implementation of their mandate. KFOR also said they offer security support in order for diplomatic efforts led by the EU to progress.

Milan Radojevic: Only Serbs can make decision on bridge opening in Mitrovica (Tanjug, social media)

Former Mitrovica North mayor, Milan Radojevic said only Serbs can make a decision on possible opening of a bridge on Ibar River, because, as he underlined, they paid a high price in order to be able to continue living in the northern part of Mitrovica and other northern municipalities.

“No one else but us can make that decision”, Radojevic wrote in a post on Instagram, along with a video depicting attacks carried out from southern, Albanian part of Mitrovica against Serb-majority northern part in the aftermath of the conflict and years afterwards.

Radojevic resigned from his post in November last year, after Serbs from northern Kosovo decided to leave all Pristina institutions there.

Radojevic also said that the northern part of Mitrovica after 1999 remained the only urban, city area in Kosovo where Serbs constitute majority. 

Vucic ahead of Brussels meeting with Kurti, says it will be difficult (Radio KIM, media)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said the upcoming meeting with Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti in Brussels will be difficult, adding that Kurti lately is pursuing a campaign against Serbia, Radio KIM reports.

“It will be difficult. All those strong in the West are against us. Still, the right and justice are on our side. And even more importantly than that, they do not understand how strong the love for freedom is and how strong and firm you can safeguard it, despite all the pressure. Long live Serbia”, Vucic wrote on his Instagram account.

He also said that Albin Kurti is pursuing a campaign against Serbia.

“A brutal and filthy (campaign) one. He and his aides. They have included all, from Shaip Kamberi to Azem Vlasi, all analysts, politicians. Threats against Serbia resemble some old days, they talk about their struggle for freedom, forgetting that the Serbs fought for freedom not only against terrorists but also against NATO aggressor (…)”, Vucic said, ending the post with “long live Serbia” and “no surrender” remarks. 

Dacic: Pristina to continue to avoid establishment of ZSO (Tanjug, media)

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said on Monday Pristina had been working for a decade on avoiding the establishment of a Community of Serb Municipalities  (ZSO)and would continue that policy in the next round of the Brussels dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina on Tuesday, Tanjug news agency reports.

“Pristina will try to minimise the significance of the Community of Serb Municipalities, from its name, statute and steering team to its powers”, Dacic told reporters after laying a wreath at the grave of Serbian Socialist Dimitrije Tucovic on International Workers’ Day on behalf of the Socialist Party of Serbia.

Dacic noted that he had last week attended a UN Security Council session that had addressed the Community of Serb Municipalities among other topics and that the UN body had also discussed the same subject ten years ago.

“We heard the same thing ten years ago. Everyone was delighted with that historic act. Ten years have passed, and a Community of Serb Municipalities has not happened yet”, Dacic said.

He said he believed it was clear to everyone that Serbia insisted on the Community being formed and that it was the first point of the Ohrid agreement.

He added that Pristina’s PM Albin Kurti was generating crises on a daily basis to lead to a “conclusion” that the conditions for forming a Community were still not in place.

“Their (Pristina’s) expectation is to expel the Serbs and that there will be no need for a Community of Serb Municipalities. Serbia has a firm position. We will stand with our people in Kosovo and Metohija. One thing is certain ahead of tomorrow’s meeting – Serbia will be constructive and President Vucic is ready for that meeting”, Dacic said yesterday. 

Petkovic: It is not up to Kurti to allow or not allow something for CSM (ZSO) (RTS, Beta, Danas) 

Office for Kosovo and Metohija Director, Petar Petkovic said yesterday that Albin Kurti either ”did not read the documents signed in Brussels or pretends not to understand what is written in them”, the statement of the Office reads. 

It was emphasised that the First Brussels Agreement, the Implementation Plan of the Agreement on the Normalisation of Relations, the Scope of Work and the Mandate of the Management Team and the General Principles for the Formation of the CSM (ZSO) were clear agreements, specifying all the Pristina’s obligations, reported RTS. 

“Therefore, Kurti has no basis to come forward with his arbitrary wishes and views on this issue – his job is to implement what was signed, on the condition that he first learns what the agreements are called, when they were signed and what is written in them,” emphasised Petkovic.

He added that it was just an attempt to obstruct the process of normalisation of relations between Belgrade and Pristina, and that, it follows from everything Kurti said and did, that he was not interested in that process at all.

“His obvious intention is to use violence and unilateral action to fundamentally change the situation on the ground and thus render the current course of dialogue on normalisation irrelevant. But let Kurti remember well that we will never allow him to do that! That is why, on this occasion, we once again call on the international community to curb the occupation of Gauleiter Kurti, so that the stability of the region would not be irreparably damaged,” Petkovic said, reported RTS, citing the Office announcement.

Anniversary of NATO attack on bus near Luzane marked yesterday (RTS, Radio kontakt plus, Gracanica-online)

24 years ago, on May 1, almost 50 people died in a NATO bomb attack on a Nis-Express bus on the bridge in Luzane, near Podujevo, including brother and sister Marija and Nikola Petrovic, secondary school students from Gracanica, RTS reports.

In a second attack, which came around 50 minutes later, an ambulance vehicle assisting those injured in the bus was struck, leaving one of the doctors present seriously injured. 

A memorial service was held yesterday at Gracanica cemetery for Petrovic siblings and in the yard of King Milutin Secondary School where a memorial plaque to them is also erected. Their parents, friends, school mates and representatives of the local authorities attended the service.

RTS recalled that no one was held responsible for this attack and casualties it caused.

Albanian municipal authorities in Podujevo also erected the memorial plaque to those killed in the Luzane attack two years ago, but included the names of the 31 Albanian victims only, Radio kontakt plus recalls. Three dots were left instead of the names of 13 Serbian victims who died in the same attack. 

Visoki Decani Monastery: Robberies becoming more frequent (Radio KIM)

“Amid growing ethnic tensions, thefts continue in ethnically mixed parts of Kosovo. A gang of robbers robbed the local post-office and a cultural centre which are used by local Serbs (in Laplje Selo). More than 1000 EUR  were stolen from the post office. The theft was reported to the Kosovo police”, Visoki Decani Monastery wrote in a post on Twitter, Radio KIM reports.

The Monastery also said that recently burglaries are becoming more frequent in ethnically mixed Gracanica municipality, particularly targeting private homes.

“In March, in the village of Batuse near Kosovo Polje, two Serbian houses and one in Laplje Selo were targeted by thieves. In Batuse, the house of Dragisa Miric, a former deputy in the Pristina Assembly, was broken into and robbed. Unknown individuals also broke into and robbed the house of the Mitra Maksimovic family in Suvo Do near Lipljan. In March, the Slavic family’s house in Lepina, near Lipljan, was broken into for the fifth time”, the Monastery recalled.

“So far the perpetrators of neither of these thefts have been brought to justice. Feeling of growing insecurity and failure of Kosovo police to protect citizens has been reported in local Serbian media”, the Monastery added. 

The Declaration on the Missing, first on the agenda of the new round of dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina (BBC)

The main topic of the new round of dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina in Brussels, which outlines the path of implementation of previously concluded agreements, should be the Declaration on the missing during the conflict in Kosovo, reported BBC in Serbian.

The website of the EEAS announced this topic as one of the key topics at the meeting of EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell on Tuesday at 6 p.m. with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, in the presence of European special envoy Miroslav Lajcak.

As another item on the agenda was stated the implementation of the Agreement on the path to normalisation between Kosovo and Serbia, as well as the discussion of the draft statute of the Community/Association of Serbian Municipalities, reported BBC. 

The issue of the missing is still an open wound in the relations between Belgrade and Pristina, and according to EULEX data from Kosovo, 1,621 are still missing, among them are about two-thirds Albanians and 568 Serbs and other non-Albanians, announced the Commission for Missing Persons of the Government of Serbia. 

By the end of the conflict in Kosovo, in June 1999, between 4,400 and 4,500 people were missing, according to the International Commission on Missing Persons.

The head of the Commission for the Missing of the Government of Serbia, Veljko Odalovic, told BBC that the families have the right to restore the peace to them, to learn the fate of their loved ones and get the opportunity to bury them with dignity, and that all those who committed crimes be prosecuted.

He therefore hopes that the agreed text of the Declaration will be adopted in Brussels.

“It is very important to reach such a document, to return to the process, to continue working and to continue contacts first with the families and to restore hope to them.”

And Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti confirmed that it will be one of the topics of the conversation with Vucic and the EU negotiators.

“In the Annex for the implementation of the Ohrid Agreement, we agreed that the issue of missing persons is urgent, so I expect it to be resolved urgently.”

“It is necessary to transform the indictments for those responsible, as in Croatia, so that they can be tried in absentia. Any delay is unreasonable because witnesses are getting old and dying,” Kurti said on National Day of the Missing on April 26.

Until that issue is resolved, the wounds of the families of the missing remain open, said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Kosovo.

“Day after day, families continue to live in anxiety and uncertainty without knowing what happened to their husbands, children or relatives,” said Agim Gashi, head of the ICRC mission.

Odalovic told BBC that Pristina is responsible for stopping the process of finding the missing.

“It is important that Albin Kurti frees the topic he captured two years ago, by accepting this document that introduces a new quality, how to start dealing with the humanitarian issue as we have been doing so far.”

“We solved more than 1,800 cases of missing persons in this mandate, 90 percent of which are Kosovo Albanians,” Odalovic told the BBC in Serbian, describing the period from 2006 to 2021.

As he says, then “the process was blocked”.

A new quality in that procedure, he adds, could be the formation of a joint commission where there will be representatives of Belgrade and Pristina, as well as international organisations such as the Red Cross and the International Organization for Missing Persons.

“A joint working group could help us a lot, because it would enable us and Pristina to enter the archives of international organisations as deeply as possible and solve issues that we have not solved so far.”

“The enormous archival material that was in the possession of international organisations was largely unavailable to us and Pristina,” said Odalovic.

During the negotiations on the Declaration, the wording “enforced disappeared persons” was disputed for a long time, which Pristina insisted on, and Belgrade refused to accept.

According to Odalovic, there is no “forced” clause in the text, and an agreement was reached on the technical level of both parties, and confirmation from the political top is expected.

Ahmet Grajqevci, who is also the president of the Coordination Council of the Association of Family Members of Missing Persons in Kosovo, assessed that the Serbian authorities never had the political will to solve the issue of missing persons.

As he told Radio Free Europe, Serbia only reacts under strong pressure from the international community, and in that context, he adds that if there is no pressure, the issue of the missing will not be resolved either.

The US Embassy in Kosovo said on Twitter that finding the missing is a priority.

The issue of the missing is part of the indictment against the former heads of the Kosovo Liberation Army and the political leaders of Pristina, Hashim Thaci and Kadri Veseli, who have been on trial before the special court in The Hague since the beginning of April.

Six counts of the indictment refer to crimes against humanity – persecution, imprisonment, torture, murder and enforced disappearance, and four more counts are war crimes – illegal arrest, cruel treatment, torture, and murder.

The criminal acts for which they are accused were committed in several places in Kosovo, as well as in Kukesh and Cahan, in northern Albania, according to the indictment.

According to the prosecution, at least 440 people were illegally imprisoned. Among them were Albanians, Serbs, Roma, Bosniaks and Montenegrins.

“They were interrogated and beaten, and those who were ‘luckier’, and at least 102 people did not survive those detentions.”

“Crimes were not isolated, but were committed systematically, and this can be seen from the prevalence,” said one of the representatives of the prosecution at the beginning of the trial.

The director of the “Dajana Paunovic” Foundation banned from entering Kosovo (Tanjug)

The director of the “Dajana Paunovic” Foundation was banned from entering KiM by the authorities of Pristina, the Foundation announced today.

According to the announcement, Paunovic was supposed to implement a humanitarian action in Serbian areas in the north of Kosovo, reported Tanjug agency.