Zahir Tanin, the head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), was briefing the UN Security Council on Thursday via video link, telling members that antagonism and accusations “continue to be far more prominent than efforts to return to a new phase of dialogue”.
Kosovo, which has an ethnic-Albanian majority, broke away from Serbia in a bloody conflict which began in 1998, with the Security Council authorizing temporary administrative powers to the UN, in 1999. Kosovo unilaterally declared independence a decade later, backed by the United States and United Kingdom, among others. But Serbia, backed diplomatically by Russia, has never accepted the split, and Kosovo has not achieved full member status at the United Nations.
Mr. Tanin, delivering his first report of the year to the Council on the state of relations, said the lack “of a unified stance” in the Kosovar capital Pristina, on how to resume talks with Belgrade, “has reached a critical point in the days since the close of the reporting period, raising concerns about the continued viability of the current Government coalition in Kosovo”.
Among specific flash points, Kosovo announced a new 100 per cent tariff on goods from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzogovina in November last year, and Serbia has said that talks are off the table until the hike is reversed.
