• COVID-19: 15 new cases, one death (media)
• Kurti and Vucic cross swords at second Brussels meeting (BIRN)
• Kosovo publishes Declaration of Peace, Serbia talks interrupting dialogue (Koha)
• Erdogan wants joint work with Biden for more Kosovo recognitions (media)
• Serwer: Time for EU and NATO to get real with Serbia (media)
• Former KLA leaders to appear before court today (Klan Kosova)
• Biserko: Passivization of ethnic Albanian addresses in Serbia, political (media)
• Kosovo war rape survivors tell stories of pain and courage (BIRN)
• Vucic fails to rebuke call for unification of all Serbs in one state (Exit News)

COVID-19: 15 new cases, one death (media)

15 new cases of COVID-19 and one death from the virus were recorded in the last 24 hours in Kosovo. 11 persons recovered from the virus during this period. There are 107 active cases of COVID-19 in Kosovo. 12,927 vaccines were administered in the last 24 hours. To date, 324,107 vaccine doses have been administered in Kosovo.

Kurti and Vucic cross swords at second Brussels meeting (BIRN)

Kosovo PM Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic made no known progress in their second meeting with each accusing the other of unwillingness to make any compromise.

No progress was made in the second meeting between Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic within the EU-facilitated dialogue on Monday, where the missing persons issue, among other things, was discussed.

Serbia’s Vucic said after meeting in Brussels that during the previous conversation he thought it was impossible to have a worse meeting, but after today’s talks, he said, he knows that is possible.

Vucic said after the meeting that he was now even more worried about the security of Serbs living in Kosovo, having in mind the atmosphere and increased attacks on Serbs in Kosovo in recent months.

Vucic said Serbia had agreed with three main points of the EU proposals which had been harmonized with the delegations from both Belgrade and Prishtina, but that PM Kurti did not want to accept the second point, which says no side will do anything which might cause destabilization.

“There were three points, to intensify joint efforts to identify the remains of the missing persons, to refrain from things that could potentially destabilize the situation on the ground and for the main negotiators to meet regularly, once a month, and prepare meetings when necessary,” the Serbian President said.

“They [Kosovo] conditioned all the time with some new political criteria,” Vucic said, adding that Kurti was now mentioning that Serbia was guilty of three genocides against Albanians in Kosovo – the first in 1878, when Serbia gained independence during the Berlin Congress, the second during the Balkan Wars and the Second World War, and the third in 1999, during the Kosovo war.

“We understand that there were crimes on both sides, they do not understand that, they see themselves as victims and Serbs as criminals. That story about genocides is someone’s intention for Serbs to be the worst people in the world,” Vucic said.

However, Kurti had a different view than Vucic, accusing Serbia of not accepting his proposed deal, with six main points, which was in its essence “a declaration of peace”, and was not being open to agreeing on anything Kosovo suggested.

“It was rejected before it was read; this proves their unwillingness to reach an agreement,” Kurti told the media.

Kurti said that he proposed that the phrase “dealing with the past” be added to the missing persons issue, but this was rejected by Vucic although it was supported, he said, by the European Union foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell.

“When our commitment to the missing was expressed to include the word ‘dealing with the past’, this was accepted by Borell but rejected by Vucic,” said Kurti.

Kurti also claimed that Kosovo Deputy PM Besnik Bislimi, who is leading Kosovo’s delegation, “read the 11 points that represent the 11 barriers that Serbia imposes on Kosovo in terms of trade and we have asked for them to be eliminated, but they did not want to hear about this either.”

Joseph Borrell said prior to the meeting, that the future is more important than the past.

“Kosovo and Serbia must finally close the chapter on their painful past through a comprehensive legally binding agreement on the normalization of relations and looking forward to a European future for their citizens,” Borrell said.

Kurti and Vucic had their first meeting in June 2021, but could not even agree on whether the talks went well or not.

While the Serbian President claimed that Prishtina was not open to any compromise and said that Kurti was unwilling to take responsibility or face reality, Kosovo’s Prime Minister said the meeting was constructive and that it made him optimistic.

One month later, in July, the meeting of the delegations in Brussels also produced little except mutual accusations, AND the EU envoy, Miroslav Lajcak, said there was “a lot of work still to be done”.

Kurti vowed in May 2021 to revive the controversial idea of launching an international court case against Serbia for alleged genocide during the 1998-99 war, but experts told BIRN that it’s unlikely to succeed.

Around 1,639 persons, most of them ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, are still listed as missing from the Kosovo war.

Kosovo proclaimed independence from Serbia in 2008. The negotiations between the two sides started in 2011, while the so-called Brussels Agreement – the first document on the principles of normalization of relations between Serbia and its former province – was signed in 2013.

Since then, the two sides have continued to regard each other with distrust.

Serbia and Kosovo’s leaders signed separate agreements with the US on mainly economic issues relating to each other at the White House during President Trump’s time in office, but neither appears ready for major compromises.

Kosovo publishes Declaration of Peace, Serbia talks interrupting dialogue (Koha)

The daily reports on its front page that following the meeting between Kosovo PM Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, the Kosovo Government has published the “Declaration of Peace” which Kurti tabled in Brussels. The document speaks of non-aggression, respect for borders, reciprocity and a peaceful solution. Vucic however had rejected the document in Brussels without even reading it.

Meanwhile Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic on Wednesday mentioned the possibility of interrupting the dialogue. He said that EU Special Representative Miroslav Lajcak said he will not organise further meetings if there are no results, “but it seems that he is patient”. “I think it is good that he is patient, because it is better to talk now than to have problems on the ground later on. The perspective however is at stake and it is evident that Kurti wants to deal with topics that are not on the agenda,” Dacic added.

The daily also notes that opposition parties in Kosovo are criticising Kurti’s approach to the dialogue.

Erdogan wants joint work with Biden for more Kosovo recognitions (media)

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that he hopes to raise in talks with U.S. President Joe Biden at this year’s United Nations General Assembly the issue of international recognition for Kosovo and would propose joint work on the issue to increase the number of countries which recognise it.

Serwer: Time for EU and NATO to get real with Serbia (media)

Several news websites covered on Tuesday the following piece by US professor and Balkans analyst Daniel Serwer, published on peacefare.net.

To his credit, Serbia’s President Vucic is acknowledging the “Serbian world” concept as his own. Serbia’s borders are inviolable he says, and “we don’t care about other people’s borders.”

Vucic wants Serbs to be united in a single political space and state, without violence. Fat chance. Serbia has eight immediate neighbors. All have Serb minorities, though Bulgaria’s is small. Six are NATO members (Croatia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Romania). Two others host EU and NATO troops committed to their territorial integrity (Bosnia and Kosovo). What happened when Serbia tried in the 1990s to extend its political space and unite some of those minorities in one state? War with Slovenia, war with Croatia, war with Bosnia, war with Kosovo, and war with NATO. The result: Serbs fled to Serbia from neighboring countries, but not a square inch of the neighboring countries was ceded to Serbia.

The German analogy, of which Vucic is fond, is nonsense. Germany was not re-united by absorbing the territory of a neighboring state. East Germany was not part of another state. It was part of Germany occupied by the Soviet Union, which was unable to maintain its autocratic control. Reunification did nothing to violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Germany’s neighbors. Everyone in Belgrade forgets to mention Austria, which lives happily as a separate, German-speaking state, despite Hitler’s ambitions. Not to mention German minorities in several other European states.

Vucic’s avowal that not a single shot will be fired in his effort to unite Serbs in a single state is as hollow as the German analogy. If he believed it, he wouldn’t be re-arming Serbia with Russian and Chinese weapons. Serbia faces no military threat from its eight neighbors. He is figuring that if Serbia gets strong enough and creates enough brouhaha, its neighbors will cede territory rather than risk a fight. There is no reason to think that will happen, or that Serbia will not resort to arms if it thinks, like Milosevic, that it can win.

One of the requirements of EU membership is good neighborly relations. Not caring about other states’ borders is the epitome of bad relations with neighbors. Vucic is ready to give up on retaking all of Kosovo and all of Bosnia. All he wants are the Serb slices, 15% or so and 49% respectively. He would be happy for a slice of Croatia as well. Eastern Slavonia? He wants all of Montenegro. It is high time Brussels told him the EU will no longer pretend that membership is a possibility for a country harboring territorial ambitions and disrespect for its neighbors’ borders. And it is time for Washington to signal clearly that NATO will defend all of Serbia’s neighbors from Belgrade’s unneighborly intentions.

It is time for the EU and NATO to get real with Serbia.

Former KLA leaders to appear before court today (Klan Kosova)

The news website reports that the next conference against former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army will be held at the Specialist Chambers today starting today at 14:30 hours. Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war in Kosovo.

Biserko: Passivization of ethnic Albanian addresses in Serbia, political (media)

Sonja Biserko, founder and president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Sonja Biserko, said in an interview with Euronews Albania that the passivization of ethnic Albanian mail addresses is more of a “political matter”. She underlined that the issue is being held hostage in face of Kosovo’s status, which according to Belgrade, remains unresolved.

“All minorities live in a form of seclusion and the Albanian community is perhaps the most affected because Kosovo is still an open case for Belgrade and directly tied with the solution of its status”, Biserko said.

According to the renowned human rights activist, this is one of the problems that needs to be addressed at the Serbia-Kosovo dialogue roundtable mediated by Brussels.

“I think that this should be taken up in the dialogue between Prishtina and Belgrade because this is one of the pending problems which are not solved and somehow these people live in the vacuum. Since there is not going to be any swapping of territory, or changing of borders, their situation should be finally settled in a way that would guarantee their integration in the Serbian society, Serbian economy, and Serbian culture”, declared the president of Serbia’s Helsinki Committee.

Furthermore, Biserko suggests that it is the international community that must exert more pressure on Belgrade in order to stick to the agreements it has signed on the integration of minorities.

“They should take up this problem seriously and try to push Serbia to implement all the agreements signed that have been signed between the two sides after 2000, after the rebellion in the south of Serbia, that we had three agreements which guaranteed the integration of the Albanian community in all these state and public institutions. It didn’t take place. In the beginning, it seemed as if it would follow through, but unfortunately, in the meantime, all this stopped and we can say that there are hardly any people who are employed in different state or public institutions. So, there has to be more done”, concluded Biserko.

Kosovo war rape survivors tell stories of pain and courage (BIRN)

A new book recounts the traumatic experiences of 13 women and men who were sexually assaulted during the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict in an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of wartime sexual violence and its consequences.

“They took us to the police station in Shtime and we were taken inside one by one. My turn was around midnight. It was raining.

“We could hear screams from the torture coming from inside. Then two police officers grabbed me and put me into the bathroom. I was screaming while one of them was holding and pushing my head down. The other one removed my trousers and belt using a knife and… the first one raped me.”

Luli - not his real name - is recalling how he was raped inside a police station in the town of Shtime/Stimlje in September 1998 during the Kosovo war.

After the rape, the police sent him to the capital Pristina, where his ordeal continued. “Then I was seriously abused again, beaten up… I was praying to be killed rather than endure what was happening to me.”

Luli’s story is one of several rape survivors’ accounts in a new book entitled ‘Beyond Pain, Towards Courage: Stories about the Trauma of Wartime Sexual Violence’, published in English, Albanian and Serbian by the Kosovo Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims and ForumZFD Kosovo.

The book is a powerful chronicle of rape, torture and trauma, as well as hope and courage, digging deep into the long-term consequences of wartime sexual violence.

Thousands of women are believed to have been victims of sexual violence inflicted by Serbian forces during the Kosovo war of 1998-99, which NATO brought to an end by terminating Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s rule over what was then a Yugoslav province.

See full story here: https://bit.ly/3xYJpBt

Vucic fails to rebuke call for unification of all Serbs in one state (Exit News)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has refused to rebuke his interior minister’s call for unification of all Serbs in the Balkans under one state.

“It’s important for people to know Serbia’s official policy, which says that Serbia’s borders are untouchable and that we are not interested in the borders of others,” Vucic told Serbia’s Pink TV on Monday.

He failed to condemn Minister of Interior Aleksandar Vulin’s repeated calls for the unification of all Serbs in the region under a “Serbian World”, a term reminiscent of Serbia’s policy of a “Greater Serbia”, which most recently motivated the country’s wars against Bosniaks, Croats, and Kosovo Albanians during the ‘90s.

“The task for this generation of politicians is to form a Serbian World, that is to unite Serbs wherever they live,” Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin said on Sunday, during celebrations of his party’s anniversary.

“For the ‘Serbian World’ to form, Serbia needs to be economically successful, well-led, and have an army that is able to protect Serbia and Serbs, wherever they live,” he added during his speech in the presence of President Vucic.

The repeated call of Minister Vulin to unite Serb minorities living in all countries in the Western Balkans this time drew backlash from several politicians in the region, who saw similarities with Serbia’s policy under President Slobodan Milosevic, the so-called Butcher of the Balkans, for whom Aleksandar Vucic acted as Minister of Information during the war against Bosniaks.

Bosnian Foreign Minister Bisera Turkovic called on Vucic to rebuke his minister. Failure to do so would mean that Serbia’s official policy is to destroy and annex the part of Bosnia and Herzegovina inhabited by Serbs, she said.

“[It’s] an ominous threat to Bosnia and Herzegovina who suffered from aggression and genocide 26 years ago,” Turkovic concluded.

Serbia’s ethnic cleansing and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina during 1992-1995 are recognized by the International Court of Justice.

A politician from neighboring Montenegro, Predrag Boskovic expressed similar worries on Twitter: “Unfortunately, [Serbia’s] neighbors felt the consequences of these kinds of politics in the most brutal way – through huge human casualties, material destruction and with an economy lagging behind modern civilization.”

Jasmin Mujanovic, a Bosnian political scientist, stressed that Vulin “Serbian World” is a reboot of Milosevic’s “Greater Serbia”.

“Serbia’s firebrand Interior Minister again reiterates that Belgrade’s “generational” objective is the “unification of all Serbs”. That is, rebooting Milosevic’s “Greater Serbia” as the “Serbian World”. Irredentism [is] now Serbia’s official foreign policy,” he tweeted.

In May, Vulin stated that the unification of Serbs under one state is the only way to solve the so-called “national question of Serbs”. Living under the roof of the European Union is not a solution for Serbs while they stay scattered in different countries, he said, while assuring Serbs that the process of unification has begun under President Vucic’s leadership and it cannot be stopped.

Serbia under President Aleksandar Vucic is working to enter the European Union and has made more progress than the rest of the region.

At the same time, the country has strengthened ties with Russia and China, as well as its military capability with supplies from both countries.

It recently held a major military exercise using heavy equipment purchased from Russia at the same time when NATO and its allies started a military exercise in the region.

Serbia has refused to join NATO, has refused to join EU sanctions against Russia, and claims to be strengthening its army in order to protect the country from invasion.

The Western Balkans were the stage for the most horrific atrocities committed in Europe since WWII when Serbia, under President Slobodan Milosevic, fought Bosniaks, Croats, and Albanians of Kosovo who wanted to create independent states upon breaking from Yugoslavia.