Sljuka: Insistence on the Kosovo and Serbia peace agreement is a distraction from problems

Aleksandar Sljuka from the NGO "New Social Initiative" assesses that emphasizing the topic of reaching a peace agreement in which Serbia and Kosovo would commit not to attack each other is just another attempt by the Kosovo authorities to distract attention from current problems.

This issue was raised last week by Kosovo's Minister of Defense, Ejup Maqedonci, who believes that such an agreement should become one of the points to be discussed before decisions on other issues within the dialogue are made.

“This is the imposition of yet another topic by the Kosovo authorities, a topic that is not essentially in focus and that has not been mentioned by international actors. The proposal put forward by Maqedonci actually implies signing a peace agreement in which Serbia and Kosovo would commit not to attack each other; however, we already partially have such an agreement. If we look at Article 3 of the Agreement on the Path to Normalization, it states that according to the principles of the United Nations Charter, both sides commit to resolving their disputes peacefully and not using force. Of course, we must acknowledge that this agreement is not respected and has not started to be implemented, but such a provision effectively exists. Therefore, I think that insisting on a new international peace agreement is just a distraction from current problems,” Sljuka tells Kosovo Online.

He adds that messages about Kosovo's lawsuit against Serbia and the demand to sign the Ohrid Agreement can be read in a similar manner.

“We always have some additional demand that was not mentioned before, which essentially does not change things and is aimed at delaying the implementation of what Kosovo needs to fulfill, so I wouldn't give this issue much significance. It is not fundamentally significant, but it is enough to divert attention from important problems. Such an agreement would not bring anything new, and in the end, it could not guarantee non-aggression. What provides clear guarantees of non-aggression are the situations on the ground. We know that NATO is present in Kosovo, that it has its bases here, and NATO countries constantly emphasize that this is a sufficient guarantee that Serbia will not attack Kosovo. But, an agreement as an agreement will not guarantee much. There were agreements between Russia and Ukraine, and we saw that Russia attacked Ukraine. Therefore, what is important is the trust between the sides. Even now, in the case of Faton Hajrizi and everything that happened in Serbia, we see divided narratives, and the relations between the two sides are again becoming tense. Trust between the sides is fundamentally important, not the agreement itself,” Sljuka concludes.