PRAGUE -- Kosovo’s President Vjosa Osmani has defended her country’s right to protect its sovereignty in line with its constitution but acknowledged that the success and sustainability of those efforts depend on better cooperation with allies.
Kosovar authorities have increasingly imposed central authority over aspects of daily life in the north of the Balkan country where many Serbs, who are a majority locally, are resisting recognition of Kosovo’s independence, which was declared by its ethnic Albanian majority in 2008.
The moves have drawn blunt criticism from partly recognized Kosovo’s Western partners as being uncoordinated and unilateral and potentially harmful to decadelong international efforts to help normalize Serbian-Kosovar relations.
Speaking to RFE/RL’s Kosovo Service at the Globsec security conference in Prague on August 31, Osmani cautioned against allowing "any dark force, any state that has malicious intentions toward Kosovo and the region, to create division between us and our allies.”
She was responding to criticism from the United States, the European Union, and Britain, Germany, and France over Kosovar security forces’ closure on August 30 of five so-called “parallel” facilities in majority-Serb municipalities.
“The situation in the north of Kosovo is very challenging, because according to the 2013 agreement, which requires all illegal structures to be dismantled, [those illegal structures] have been strengthened by [Serbian President Aleksandar] Vucic in this decade and have turned into mafia groups that challenge security and sovereignty but also the very lives of citizens living in the north of the country.”
Neighboring Serbia -- along with Russia, China, and a few EU member states -- does not recognize Kosovo’s sovereignty and continues to encourage Kosovar Serbs’ reliance on Belgrade for shadow institutions that Pristina calls illegal.
Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s government has called the shuttered facilities a violation of the country’s constitution and laws, an accusation that echoes recent crackdowns on the use of Serbian dinars and Serbian postal and bank outlets by the tens of thousands of ethnic Serbs in the area.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O’Brien this week urged Kurti once again to stop “uncoordinated actions that negatively affect our partnership.”
SEE ALSO: News Analysis: Kosovo Further Alienates Minority Serbs, Straining Status As 'Reliable Partner'Washington has been among Pristina’s strongest allies since independence but has signaled increasing frustration with the Kurti government’s actions over the past 18 months, when violence has erupted that has pitted Serbs against Kosovar authorities and sometimes NATO KFOR peacekeepers.
"This separation, in the long term, costs Kosovo a lot,” Osmani told RFE/RL. “Kosovo has the opportunity to be successful in extending its sovereignty, together with its allies. More communication, more consultation, more coordination is required."
Serbian and others’ refusal to recognize Kosovo’s statehood costs Pristina deeply and blocks its integration into international institutions.
But a failure to resolve the impasse through the mediated dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina is also hindering Serbia’s EU accession efforts -- a point Vucic reiterated on August 31 was “a very difficult issue for us.”