Are the Quint countries really united in their condemnation of Kurti's violent actions in the north?

Although the countries of the Quint have repeatedly condemned the violent actions and unilateral moves of the Pristina authorities in the north of Kosovo, the interlocutors of Kosovo Online assess that the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, cannot be described as an "independent shooter", but that he has the back of certain Western countries, as well as that it would be wrong to think that the condemnations of Kurti's actions will lead to the Serbian side being supported in everything it envisions.

"There is no need for the Kosovo Police to play the role of guards in front of municipal buildings", was the statement of the British ambassador to Kosovo, Nicholas Abbott, after the meeting with Kurti, while the American ambassador, Jeffrey Hovenier, said on several occasions that the way to calm the situation in the north was to withdraw special units of the Kosovo Police and mayors from the offices in the municipalities in the north. Despite these messages, for weeks, there is no progress which is expected from Kurti.

Retired diplomat Branko Brankovic believes that "all the game around Kurti as an allegedly independent shooter in Kosovo who does what and how he wants is an insult to the intelligence".

"All this game is a funny thing and it makes no sense for them to insult our intelligence. Kurti is a puppet who is being told what to do. The triumvirate calls the shots - the US, Germany, and Great Britain. Kurti submitted his proposal for the formation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities, so his proposal was also presented by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, and all of these are actually stories for children, and the purpose of everything is to drag out the formation of the CSM as long as possible and delay the withdrawal of Police Forces from the north," Brankovic says.

If there was a real will of the Quint and consistency in their demands, as Brankovic believes, the Police units could be withdrawn very quickly.

"Police units from the north could be withdrawn in two hours if there was a real will, just as quick talks on the formation of the CSM could be scheduled according to the proposal of the Management Team submitted in Brussels because only that team had the mandate to draft the Statute of the CSM. By law, they are the only ones who could handle it. The purpose of the whole story is to drag everything out and to give the Quint countries time to see how they will do with the Ukrainian crisis. They are on thin ice because it is not known who will profit and who will lose in that situation. How the Quint countries will deal with the situation in Ukraine directly affects the situation here as well. If they lose there, the pressure will increase for us to save the things. The big ones don't solve crises, they are creating them," Brankovic says, reminding that the Quint countries everywhere have their own interests, which, as he says, "they realize behind other people's backs."

The former ambassador of Serbia in Berlin and Vienna Milovan Bozinovic assesses for Kosovo Online that the countries of the Quint are in agreement about a goal that does not go as far as the Serbian side would like.

"They are united in what they said, which is the request for the formation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities and the general calming down of the situation in the north. From the perspective of the Quint, this is not possible if Serbia does not show constructiveness on these issues. It would be wrong for someone in Serbia to think that the condemnations of Kurti's actions, which are in place, will lead to the Serbian side being supported in everything it has imagined,“ Bozinovic says.

He adds that the reprimands which Kurti received are a good chance for Serbia.

"I am concerned that the Special Envoy Gabriel Escobar recently said that Kurti was difficult, but that he was an interlocutor with whom they counted. We will be asked to be constructive and it is good that Kurti's policy has met with condemnation, but we must be careful not to exaggerate that. It is a good incentive for the negotiations to go in a favorable direction for us, when I say favorable, I mean in terms of the difficult situation we are in," Bozinovic explains.

He points out that the Serbian side got a chance to come out of this with a favorable result.

"The Serbian side, because of Quint's attitude, got a chance to come out of all this with a favorable result in this complicated situation, but with a careful policy. The result for us can be positive, to move a few steps forward towards the formation of the CSM, but we have to take care of the steps we are taking," Bozinovic concludes.