Radakovic: Kosovo government will have to swallow a bitter pill to get back on track with strategic dialogue with the US

The executive director of the non-governmental organisation Center for Advocacy of Democratic Culture (ACDC), Dusan Radakovic, said that Kosovo's relations with US institutions are catastrophic and have never been worse since 1999. He therefore believes that Albin Kurti's new government will try to initiate strategic dialogue with the US because, as he says, Kosovo has much to lose without cooperation with American institutions.

According to Radakovic, for the Kosovo government to get back on track with strategic dialogue with the Americans, it will have to swallow a rather large bitter pill.

Speaking about the obligations towards Serbs in Kosovo that the US State Department recently highlighted as one of the conditions for the start of strategic dialogue, our interlocutor says that several issues are involved.

"These include rights and protection, the Serbian Orthodox Church, because we know that American institutions have always supported the rights of the Serbian Orthodox Church, as well as hate speech and radicalism, respect for the Constitution and the rights guaranteed to Serbs, and the shutdown of Serbian institutions. These are all issues that the US has recently tried to draw attention to, particularly since the US embassy has been without an ambassador, either through the deputy at the embassy or through institutions. These are the main indicators that American institutions and the US embassy will only now begin to exert pressure on Kosovo," Radakovic believes.

He says that Kosovo is "America's child" and that the United States was the driving force behind Kosovo's establishment as a state. However, relations are now poor, particularly over the past year and a half, which he considers a major failing, above all on the part of Albin Kurti's government.

He interprets Kurti's offer to make Bondsteel a permanent US military base as an attempt to rectify these mistakes.

"However, the Americans' message is clear and concrete: things are not heading in the right direction. There will certainly be even greater pressure, not only from the Americans but also from the European Union, because Kosovo now has institutions in place after two years. Especially if the war in Ukraine comes to a halt, hopefully next week, the focus will shift to the Balkans, and Kosovo will certainly be back on the agenda, facing much stronger pressure, primarily from the Americans and the EU," Radakovic says.