Association of Serbian Municipalities

Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti on Tuesday refused to accept a draft statute for the establishment of an Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities to represent Serbs' interests in Kosovo, claiming it would establish an entity like Bosnia and Herzegovina's Serb-dominated Republika Srpska, whose leaders have repeatedly challenged the legitimacy of their state.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said Serbia will insist that extraordinary local elections for four Serb majority municipalities in the north of Kosovo be held after the long-promised Association of Serb Municipalities is established.

Serbia and Kosovo on Tuesday discussed the initial steps for establishing the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities in Kosovo at a meeting in Brussels between the 'technical level' negotiators in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue process, Petar Petkovic and Besnik Bislimi.

The US Deputy Assistant of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Matthew Palmer, on Sunday said that Kosovo needs to fulfill its obligation to set up an Association of Serb-majority Municipalities.

Kosovo politicians have complained of a lack of information about the draft statute for the proposed Association of Serbian Municipalities, which is designed to guarantee their autonomy in the mainly ethnic Albanian country.

Leaked documents that BIRN has seen reveal that Kosovo Serb stakeholders that the team tasked to draft the controversial statute in Kosovo on the Association of Serbian Municipalities consulted believe the statute should allow the education and health sectors to remain reliant on Serbia.

Goran Rakic, the president of the main Kosovo Serb party, Srpska Lista, said on Tuesday that an Association of Serbian Municipalities will be set up independently from Pristina and that the party will leave the Kosovo government.

Ahead of the next round of Kosovo-Serbia talks in Brussels on normalising relations, government and opposition parties have exchanged barbs on whether last spring's accord with Serbia is delivering results.

Glauk Konjufca, a lawmaker of the opposition nationalistic Vetevendosje movement accused the government of failing to integrate the Serb-dominated northern part of Kosovo.