Kosovo and Strategic Dialogue with US: No progress without Community of Serb Municipalities

Within ten days, Kosovo received two almost identical messages—one from the State Department and the other from the US Embassy in Pristina: the launch of the Strategic Dialogue depends on the creation of appropriate conditions, including Kosovo fulfilling its commitments to the Serbian community. Kosovo Online’s interlocutors have no doubt—the “number one” commitment Washington has in mind is the Community of Serb Municipalities. A broader package could also include respect for the rights of the Serbian Orthodox Church and rights that, for Serbs, currently exist only on paper.

Written by: Dusica Radeka Djordjevic

What the State Department said on October 14 was confirmed yesterday by the United States Embassy in Pristina. Washington remains committed to advancing shared interests, but the launch of the Strategic Dialogue also depends on Kosovo fulfilling its commitments to Kosovo Serbs.

The specific commitments were not spelled out, but officials in Pristina have certainly not forgotten that, when the State Department suspended the planned Strategic Dialogue last September, it explained that taking the process off the table was “entirely based on the actions of the caretaker Government of Kosovo.”

“The United States needs a partner that understands the need to avoid destabilizing actions and is committed to advancing regional stability and protecting the rights of all citizens of Kosovo,” Washington said at the time.

Speaking about the reasons why the US administration froze the launch of the Strategic Dialogue with Pristina, Jonathan Katz, a fellow in governance studies at Brookings who has also held senior positions at the State Department and in Congress, told Kosovo Online last week that there had been concerns about the way Pristina had acted, particularly in northern Kosovo and in its treatment of Serbs.

Meanwhile, on July 17 this year, the United States launched a Strategic Dialogue with Serbia.

Favoring the Albanian side no longer taken for granted

Petar Donic, an associate of the New Third Way organization, told Kosovo Online that since Donald Trump returned to power in the United States, it had become apparent that the traditional US policy of the previous 30 years, which favored the Albanian side, was no longer necessarily a given.

As for the latest messages to Kosovo regarding the Strategic Dialogue, he believes that the commitments being referred to primarily concern the Community of Serb Municipalities.

“In what format and manner this should be done is something I am fairly certain the Trump administration does not even go into in detail. Whether the two sides should jointly come up with a solution or the latest active proposal should be implemented with Europe involved, in either case the Serbian side must be respected. That is what is expected,” Donic said.

He explained that the Strategic Dialogue with the United States should be viewed as an additional operational resource.

“Opening a Strategic Dialogue creates a track—you have dedicated people at the State Department who want to work on something and are expected to deliver something. Having it means engagement; not having it means no engagement. The Strategic Dialogue is a framework. It does not have a predetermined, copy-and-paste application from one region to another, but depends on the region and the political climate. For Kosovo, it could mean certain economic projects; it could mean stabilizing projects they have already had with the Americans or extending some of them. I would recall the highway construction project, which dragged on for quite some time but was ultimately completed successfully. These could be infrastructure projects of that kind,” Donic said.

Kosovo, he added, was very small and had a small economy, while for the United States investments of the kind it had previously made in Kosovo would amount to “virtually no money.”

“As our people would say, what is little to one may be a lot to another. Having that on the table means a great deal to them economically; not having it can drastically slow down such a small economy,” Donic said.

Although there have been various statements by envoys close to Trump and by US officials at senior, mid-level and lower levels, Donic believes that beyond those declarative statements—and the fact that the Strategic Dialogue with Kosovo has not been launched while one has been launched with Serbia—not much has been seen so far.

“We need to be realistic in the sense that stronger diplomatic activity cannot be expected until ambassadors are in place. The ambassador to Serbia will not arrive until the beginning of the year, and until we have, so to speak, operatives on the ground, we should not expect any diplomatic offensive from their side. We can expect that once the ambassador arrives. Whether and to what extent this will genuinely represent a shift, or merely a cosmetic one, we cannot know until that happens,” Donic said.

Given that the White House has not even nominated an ambassador to Kosovo, he said this could be a positive signal for Belgrade, because the diplomat arriving in Belgrade would begin working without a “counterweight” in Pristina.

“Certain decisions and moves that will have consequences will be made. So, alongside a certain shift in rhetoric—which has not explicitly said ‘100 percent for the Serbian side and zero for Kosovo,’ which would not be realistic—we are nevertheless seeing moves that suggest a change in the climate,” he assessed.

Political analyst Nedzmedin Spahiu likewise believes that when the State Department says the launch of the Strategic Dialogue also depends on fulfilling commitments toward Kosovo Serbs, it is referring to the establishment of the Community of Serb Municipalities.

Spahiu said this was an obligation arising from the agreement reached in Brussels between Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti.

“That agreement means that Kosovo establishes the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities as a form of autonomy for Serbs in Kosovo, while Belgrade has an obligation to open a permanent Kosovo diplomatic mission in Belgrade and a Serbian mission in Pristina, which is in Pristina’s interest. The United States is putting pressure on both sides to fulfill these obligations, and it is up to Pristina to establish the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities. Once that happens, I believe America’s approach will become more concrete and the Strategic Dialogue will begin,” Spahiu told Kosovo Online.

He believes the Kosovo Government will work toward launching the Strategic Dialogue with the United States.

“Kurti even offered Vucic, at a United Nations Security Council session, to sign what they had agreed. The reason Kurti is not fulfilling his obligations is that he fears that if he fulfills his part, Belgrade will not fulfill its own and new negotiations will then begin. He is interested in having the agreement implemented as it was reached in Brussels. That is why several years have passed since the agreement without it being implemented,” Spahiu said.

Pressure on the “prodigy”

Executive Director of the NGO Advocacy Center for Democratic Culture (ACDC) Dusan Radakovic also believes that Albin Kurti’s new government will seek to launch the Strategic Dialogue with the United States because, as he puts it, Kosovo stands to lose a great deal without cooperation with US institutions.

Radakovic told Kosovo Online that Kosovo’s relations with US institutions were disastrous and had never been worse since 1999. In his view, the Kosovo Government would have to swallow a fairly bitter pill to get back on track toward a Strategic Dialogue with the Americans.

Speaking about commitments toward Kosovo Serbs, which the State Department recently highlighted as one of the conditions for launching the Strategic Dialogue, he believes Washington has several issues in mind.

“Rights, protection, the Serbian Orthodox Church—because we know that US institutions have always advocated for the rights of the Serbian Orthodox Church—then hate speech and radicalism, respect for the Constitution and the guaranteed rights of Serbs, and the closure of Serbian institutions. These are all issues on which the United States has recently tried to draw their attention, particularly since the US Embassy has been without an ambassador, either through the deputy chief of mission or through institutions. These are the main indicators that US institutions and the US Embassy will now put even greater pressure on Kosovo,” Radakovic said.

He described Kosovo as “America’s prodigy,” saying that the United States had been the enthusiastic driving force behind Kosovo’s establishment as a state, but that relations were now poor, particularly over the past year and a half, which he regarded primarily as a major failure of Albin Kurti’s government.

He therefore interprets Kurti’s offer to turn Bondsteel into a permanent US base as an attempt to repair past mistakes.

“However, the Americans’ message is clear and concrete: things are not moving in the right direction, and there will certainly be even greater pressure not only from the Americans but also from the European Union, because after two years Kosovo now has functioning institutions. Especially if the war in Ukraine ends—hopefully next week—the focus will shift to the Balkans, and Kosovo will certainly once again become an issue, with much stronger pressure primarily from the United States and the EU,” Radakovic said.