Kosovo Delays Demarcation Vote Once Again

The Kosovo Assembly on Wednesday again failed to proceed to a vote on the controversial border agreement with Montenegro after the government failed to stack up the necessary numbers.

The vote was postponed for "another day", which the presidency of the assembly will set in the days to come.

A previous attempt to ratify the border demarcation agreement failed on February 22, after the government decided to turn the vote into a package, by including two additional documents.

One was a report by a state commission, which concluded that the border deal was damaging to Kosovo. The other was the joint statement of the presidents of the two countries.

The Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, which backs the deal, deemed this approach "contradictory".

After the ruling coalition reached an agreement with the LDK, hopes rose that a vote could be taken. However, the main Kosovo Serb party, Lista Srpska, whose support is also necessary, said it was still not ready to vote for the agreement.

Dalibor Jevtic, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Communities and Returns, from Lista Srpska, and other MPs of the party, during the day met President Hashim Thaci, the speaker of parliament, Kadri Veseli and the Prime Minister, Ramush Haradinaj.

No official statement was issued after the meeting, so it remains unclear whether Lista Srpska will now back up its coalition partners. However, Jevtic was seen leaving the meeting with Haradinaj.

Lista Srpska has ten seats in parliament, and has boycotted sessions set to ratify the border agreement, conditioning its participation on Kosovo first implementing an agreement to form an autonomous Association of Serbian Municipalities.

To ratify the demarcation agreement, which was signed back...