BRUSSELS — The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo have refused to compromise at a contemporary spherical of conferences meant to enhance their bitter relations they usually proceed to jeopardize their probabilities of becoming a member of the European Union, the bloc’s high diplomat stated Thursday.
EU overseas coverage chief Josep Borrell, who has been supervising the “Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue” course of, stated that negotiators had offered “a critical and balanced proposal” to beat one of many essential hurdles to placing their plan on normalizing ties into motion.
“Unhappily, the events weren’t able to agree on that with out preconditions,” Borrell stated, and all sides’s preconditions “had been unacceptable (to) the opposite social gathering.”
He insisted that respecting their pledges within the dialogue “is the one manner for them to advance onto the European path” towards membership. Each international locations have stated they need to be part of the 27-nation bloc.
Regardless of the leaders of France, Germany and Italy weighing in, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic started buying and selling blame for the dearth of progress instantly after the talks in Brussels, a lot as they’ve completed for months.
Thursday’s talks had been mainly aimed toward placing into motion an settlement that Vucic and Kurti reached in February, though the 2 have since raised points with it. The thought was to work on new “proposals and concepts” floated in exploratory talks final weekend.
However Vucic and Kurti deeply mistrust one another, and they’re proving tough for the EU to cope with.
Kurti stated that through the conferences, Vucic had refused to signal their February settlement in addition to an motion plan for making that deal work.
“Acceptance entails a signature; solely a signature entails acceptance and ensures implementation,” Kurti stated in an announcement.
Vucic dismissed that declare as “tips,” saying “there was no query of signing or not signing.”
“Somebody is taking part in video games to shift the blame on the opposite facet,” he stated.
The conferences in Brussels occurred on the sidelines of an EU summit. Fears are excessive of a resumption of the violence that has marked their relations since Kosovo unilaterally broke away from Serbia in 2008. Belgrade nonetheless considers Kosovo a Serbian province and has by no means acknowledged its independence.
Vucic insisted Thursday “that Serbia can’t settle for membership within the U.N. or independence for Kosovo.”
The brand new European effort to breathe life into the talks got here after a significant gun battle on Sept. 24, when about 30 Serb gunmen crossed into northern Kosovo, killed a police officer and arrange barricades. Three gunmen had been killed within the shootout with Kosovo police.
Kurti stated that those that carried out the assault, notably their chief Milan Radoicic, had fled again into Serbia and must be extradited to Kosovo for trial. He stated the trial could be honest as a result of the EU’s rule of legislation mission in Kosovo may monitor it.
Radoicic was briefly detained, questioned and launched in Serbia earlier this month.
The massive drawback is that neither Vucic nor Kurti desires to be the primary to make concessions with out ensures that the opposite will reciprocate.
The EU and U.S. are urgent Kosovo to permit the creation of an Affiliation of the Serb-Majority Municipalities to coordinate work on training, well being care, land planning and financial improvement in communities of northern Kosovo principally populated by ethnic Serbs.
Kurti fears such an affiliation could be a step towards making a Serb mini-state with large autonomy.
The Europeans provided a proposal to get round this, which Borrell stated could be “an excellent leap ahead within the normalization course of” and assist “to keep away from new spirals of violence” in the event that they seized it.
Vucic blamed Kurti for refusing to take up the supply, saying “it’s utterly clear who doesn’t need to kind the Affiliation of Serb-Majority Municipalities.”
The very last thing the Europeans need is extra battle of their yard. The conflict between Serbia and Kosovo in 1998-99 left greater than 10,000 folks lifeless, principally Kosovo Albanians.
Even with each international locations’ membership hopes unsure over the impasse, Kurti stated that Kosovo deserves to be formally granted candidate standing for becoming a member of the EU attributable to “its democratic and financial progress.”
___
Jovana Gec in Belgrade and Llazar Semini in Tirana contributed to this report.