Kosovo negotiator Skender Hyseni has accused Serbia of attempting to manipulate the dialogue by dragging the process indefinitely.
“The process should not be allowed to be manipulated by Serbia,” and “there are very serious signs that a manipulation of the whole process is intended,” Skenderi stated on Thursday.
Speaking to Koha newspaper after the second round of technical talks in Brussels, Hyseni blamed Serbia for having been “unconstructive” and pushed for discussion of points already agreed in the previous meeting.
“The Serbian side today has been unconstructive. This should be emphasized loud and clear. Today, the Serbian side has even returned to points on which we had agreed in principle,” Hyseni stated.
The parties discussed the missing persons and economic cooperation today – topics that were also discussed in the previous meeting in July.
He added that Kosovo will not accept the dialogue to drift away from the objective of reaching mutual recognition.
“All this confirms that concern, that concern that I have expressed that Serbia intends to drag on, to put on the table issues that have only one goal, for the process to drag on and eventually slip into something that we will not accept at all,” said Hyseni after the meeting.
Kosovo’s chief negotiator added that mutual recognition is the only objective that could resolve disputes between the two countries.
“This agreement should inevitably bring mutual recognition between Kosovo and Serbia. There can be no other agreement […] Without this framework, we can only slip into another ten years of wasting time completely unnecessarily and deepening the disputes that are already big,” concluded.
Serbia has often reiterated recently that mutual recognition is not the objective of talks, and that they will never recognize Kosovo.
On September 4, Kosovo and Serbia leaders will meet at the White House to discuss economic cooperation.
