Milivojevic: The West wants to accelerate the Kosovo issue resolution due to the possible end of the war in Ukraine

Former diplomat Zoran Milivojevic expects the West to speed up negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo and try to resolve the issue before the final outcome of the war in Ukraine, Politika reports.

"They want to solve the Kosovo problem and for this region, with Kosovo as a country and a member, NATO to enter that sphere and for that to be the end of the story. That's what the US Ambassador Hill and other diplomats say, and that's their goal. They want to speed it up because it can be expected that Russia will speed up or bring the war in Ukraine to an end this year. In addition, the elections in the EU and the US are coming up, and it is the last chance for those administrations to do something concrete," Milivojevic says.

Milivojevic points out that the Franco-German plan has two steps - an introductory one, in which the basic principles of relations and the establishment of some kind of relations normalization would be agreed upon.

"The second part would be final, in which they would like to avoid recognition but still have some normalization and have some relations between the two entities. They will try to start with this to create the possibility of Kosovo's statehood being confirmed through access to international organizations. So, access to the Council of Europe and the Partnership for Peace, and to create the conditions for the five countries that have not recognized the so-called Kosovo to do so, based on the general agreement between Belgrade and Pristina, and to open Kosovo's negotiations with the European Union based on that," Milivojevic says.

In some diplomatic circles, it can be heard that when all talks are exhausted and the pressures reduced, an agreement would be offered to Belgrade and Pristina that will be final. The party that rejects the document would be characterized as the main culprit and bear the consequences.

Commenting on this possibility, Milivojevic says that it is theoretically possible, but in order for the West to do something like that, it would first have to renounce Serbia and have mechanisms for possible destabilization ready.

"That would mean stopping all processes in the region and leaving the problems here unresolved, which will then be solved under the influence of Russia and China. I don't think they will act like that, but they will try to break us through the economy. That's how I look at the new US strategy and their announcement that this year will be followed by the increased investment in the energetics sector, so that our country's politics will also be influenced through this," Milivojevic points out.