US envoy for Kosovo-Serbia dialogue Richard Grenell said the claim by Edward P. Joseph, a foreign policy expert, that Grenell is supporting the Mogherini-Vucic-Thaci plan for the partition of Kosovo was fake news.
Joseph, who is a senior fellow at John Hopkins’s School of International Affairs and a former diplomat serving in the Balkans made the statement during an interview for the Serbian edition of the Voice of America.
“Fake News. This has never been discussed in my presence. Edward P. Joseph is reckless here,” Grenell tweeted in reply to an excerpt from the interview.
Fake News. This has never been discussed in my presence. @edwardpjoseph is reckless here. https://t.co/HL0T5sHSVc
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) March 7, 2020
Edward P. Joseph made the following claim:
“The real goal of Grenell and Vucic and Thaci is to get the deal, and I believe it’s the same or similar deal to what they already agreed under Mogherini.
And that was for a partition of Kosovo, which they call sometimes a land swap but it’s really more to the point is the question that it would be a territorial division of Kosovo, because we don’t know how much territory in Serbia that Kosovo would actually get , it would probably be minimal amount. But the main point is that it would be a partition, and probably significant partition of Kosovo, and the key question for that is: “What does that mean for the majority of Serbs living, who live south of the Ibar River?”
Later, Grenell also replied to a netizen’s request for more info, writing that the US is only focused on economic development and jobs, but that political issues between Kosovo and Serbia have to be solved by them.
Washington is focused on economic development & jobs – we believe this has been ignored in the dialogue. But we can’t help when the Kosovo Govt’s tariffs continue to hurt Kosovo. They must be dropped first. Also, political issues will be solved by the two sides – not Washington. https://t.co/fJP2HfaN4V
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) March 7, 2020
