David L. Phillips, Director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, presented to the students of the American University in Kosovo a review of the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue and stressed that “a dialogue needs to be a state-to-state negotiations about Serbia recognizing Kosovo.”

“Unless that is not the outcome of the dialogue, all those small steps and confidence-building measures really don’t add up to very much. This needs to be about mutual recognition, culminating in normalization,” Philips said adding that anything short of this outcome would be a diplomatic and political failure.

Speaking about the current state of dialogue, Phillips said it was a “dishonest dialogue.” He said talks are not taking place between two equal parties and to be successful it needs to have a clear agenda and timeframe.