Garic: The CSM is a stone in Pristina's shoe

The editor of the Kosovo Online portal Milos Garic said today that it was clear that the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities was a "stone in the shoe" of Pristina, and that it was clear that the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, was trying to avoid discussing the CSM in Brussels.

"The CSM is definitely a stone in Pristina's shoe, a key moment around which everything revolves," Garic told TV Pink, commenting on today's round of dialogue in Brussels.

He added that in the previous days, it had also been seen how far Kurti had gone in his attempts to request the establishment of a community of Albanian municipalities in North Macedonia, which Macedonian Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski himself said was out of the question.

Garic stated that Kurti was trying to pass the ball to the Albanians in central Serbia, to the Albanian deputy in the Serbian parliament, Shaip Kamberi, and also to Sulejman Ugljanin, who, he added, was in Washington today.

"It's all part of one story, intending to bring the CSM into doubt, making it meaningless, and that what is being demanded for the Serbs in Kosovo, which was agreed upon, the Albanians in the region will try to demand, in order to create confusion, which Kurti continues even today, with those six conditions, of which it is not known which is less rational," Garic said.

He pointed out that Kurti was saying that the CSM was inadmissible because it would be mono-ethnic, even though the territories where the Serbs were the majority had a significantly higher percentage of other people.

"If there are 93 percent of Albanians in Kosovo, and 7 percent of others, there would be significantly more other national minorities in the area of the CSM, so his claim and argumentation do not make sense and fall into the water. But he insists on it trying to present himself as a great democrat," Garic said.

He stated that the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, led a smart policy, open to discussion, but he knew very well which interests he would not jeopardize and stood on the solid foundation of international law and documents.

"The fact that Serbia insists on the CSM gives us a tactical advantage because the Albanian side has lost a realistic approach, in relation to Belgrade, but also to the West, which enabled them to have everything they have at their disposal in Kosovo. With these irrational attitudes and maximum demands, the West realizes that they are not a party with which they can normally talk, that they will stick to their word," Garic noted.

He added that because of this, Serbia's room for maneuver was small, but stable because the West saw that Kurti was an interlocutor who did not keep his word, that he is prone to manipulation, and that everything he had done so far had been against the normalization of relations because he did not want normal, but "abnormal" relationships.