Bislimi in the White House: Serbia is not ready for normalization

2024-12-07 13:33:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

The Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo, Besnik Bislimi, during a meeting at the White House with the director for Europe at the US National Security Council, Ambassador Michael Carpenter, said that Serbia is not ready for the normalization of relations with Kosovo.

Bislimi said that an indication of this unwillingness of Serbia for normalization and good neighborliness is the attack on November 29 in Varraghe of Zveçan, towards the Ibër Lepenci channel.

This channel supplies water from Lake Ujman to the entire north of Kosovo, the regions of Mitrovica, Pristina and its surroundings, as well as the Energy Corporation of Kosovo for cooling its thermal power plants.

For this attack, which Kosovo considers terrorist and which has been severely condemned by the United States, Pristina blames Belgrade. However, Serbia has denied involvement and said it will investigate this case.

"He [Bislimi] also emphasized the need for Banjska's act of aggression in September of last year as well as the recent attack in Ibër-Lepenc to be punished with concrete measures, in order to prevent Serbia from repeating attacks of such proportions that undermine the security of the country and the region", it was said in the announcement of the Government of Kosovo.

Kosovo also blames Serbia for the attack on September 24 of last year in Banjska of Zveçan, against the Kosovo Police. A group of armed Serbs attacked the Police killing a sergeant. During the exchange of fire, three attackers were also killed.

Serbia denies the accusations of involvement in this attack, for which Millan Radoicic has taken responsibility.

Radoicic, former vice-president of Lista Serbe - the main party of Serbs in Kosovo that has the support of Belgrade - in the indictment filed by the authorities in Kosovo for Banjska, is considered the organizer and leader of the attack. Kosovo demands that Serbia extradite him.

In the meeting at the White House, Bislimi - who is also Kosovo's chief negotiator in the dialogue process - said that Kosovo continues to remain constructive and engaged in the dialogue for the normalization of relations mediated by the European Union and supported by the USA .

He also spoke about the implementation of the Agreement on the path to the normalization of relations.

This agreement was reached last year. The parties did not sign it due to Serbia's opposition. However, the EU says that despite not having been signed, the agreement is binding for the parties and has said that Kosovo and Serbia have not yet started its implementation.

The agreement of 11 articles, among other things, foresees a level of self-management for the Serbian community in Kosovo, mutual recognition of state symbols, so that Serbia does not block Kosovo's membership in international organizations, and asks Pristina and Belgrade to implement them, yes also, all previous agreements reached during the dialogue./ REL