Kosovo ‘Should Rethink Serbia Agreements’ with Biden in Power

Kosovo's Acting President Vjosa Osmani. Photo: EPA-EFE/GEORGI LICOVSKI

In September 2020, the presidents of Kosovo and Serbia, Avdullah Hoti and Aleksandar Vucic, signed agreements at the White House on mainly economic issues in the presence of President Donald Trump. The agreements were signed separately by Kosovo and Serbia with the US, not with each other.

"We need to sit and talk with US President Biden's team, to see what they think about those issues which were reached as pledges, not as an agreement," Osmani told BIRN Kosovo's television show.

Reservations have been expressed in Pristina about whether all the clauses in the Washington agreement benefit Kosovo.

"There are questions over issues such as the Ujmani lake and other political issues about which we need to see what the Biden administration's position is," Osmani said.

In the agreement, Kosovo and Serbia committed to work with the US to explore the possibility of sharing the Ujmani/Gazivode lake, a strategically important reservoir that is claimed by both sides.

"I am not prejudging because I am not one of those who think that new administration will just throw this agreement in the bin," Osmani added.

Osmani said she is also hoping that the Biden administration will favour a review of an EU-mediated agreement signed with Serbia in 2015 to establish a so-called Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities in Kosovo. Serbs see the idea as a guarantee that their interests will be protected but Kosovo Albanians politicians argue that it creates a parallel Serb power centre.

Serbia insists that the association must be established in line with the agreement, but Kosovo Constitutional Court ruled in 2015 that many of its provisions do not conform with Kosovo...

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