Arifi: Serbia working hard to deepen relations with the U.S., Kosovo content with small steps

Political scientist Dritero Arifi emphasized that Serbia is working hard to deepen its relations with the United States, while Kosovo remains content with small steps, Gazeta Blic reports.

Arifi sees the letter from U.S. President Donald Trump to Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani as a positive development.

“Serbia is working extremely hard to deepen relations. Of course, that is still a long way off, but they have chosen a step-by-step tactic, whereas we are content with small steps. The letter is positive, but it is a small step,” Arifi told Gazeta Blic.

Arifi recalled that Kosovo also received a letter of gratitude in 2021, but that political developments later showed that Kosovo and the U.S. were not fully aligned.

“The letter is merely an expression of gratitude because we accepted some Afghans whom the U.S. had deported. The same thing happened in 2021 — the U.S. thanked us, but later politics showed that we were not really in sync with the U.S. So, we should not be satisfied with small things; foreign policy requires coherence, meaning you cannot be good one day and bad the next. Coherence is needed, especially with the unpredictable policies of this administration,” Arifi stressed.

According to him, sacrifices are sometimes necessary in relations with the U.S., something Self-Determination will find difficult to make if it returns to power.

“Relations with the U.S. are both present and absent, because at the moment we do not have credible institutions capable of producing policy, and it must be understood that U.S. policy, as it stands now, requires many joint actions. So, in a way, sacrifices sometimes have to be made, and if the government remains the same in the next mandate, then the word ‘sacrifice’ would be very difficult for Kurti’s third government,” Dritero Arifi said.