Kosovo PM Kurti accuses West of 'appeasement' towards Serbia over Russia fears

By Andrew Gray

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti on Friday accused Western officials of "appeasement" towards Serbia, driven by what he said were overblown fears that Belgrade would move closer to Moscow.

In an interview with Reuters in Brussels, Kurti said the European Union was failing to play the role of referee in the implementation of an EU-brokered deal to normalise relations between the Balkan former wartime foes.

Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Serbia has sought to strike a balance between traditionally close ties with Moscow and its relations with the West, a major source of investment.

It has not joined Western sanctions against Russia but it has condemned the invasion. Serbian munitions have found their way to Ukrainian forces, although the Serbian government says it is not supplying them.

EU and U.S. officials have placed much of the blame on Kurti for the failure to move forward with the deal between Serbia and Kosovo, struck in March last year in Ohrid, North Macedonia.

But Kurti rejected those assertions and said the West was failing to call out Serbian violations of the deal.

"I want Brussels to play the role of a referee who will blow the whistle whenever a violation of the agreement takes place," Kurti said.

"What we have seen in these two years is that whenever Belgrade violated the agreement, Brussels did not act," he added.

"The appeasement of Serbia, over two and a half years since the Russian aggression in Ukraine started, is not paying off. And somebody should say stop it," he said.

Kosovo, whose population is mainly ethnic Albanian, declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Serbia does not recognise that declaration, with diplomatic backing from Russia.

Kurti said diplomats and officials at the forefront of Western policy towards Serbia were showing "too much caution or even fear" towards the Kremlin.

The EU’s diplomatic service, which helped broker the Ohrid agreement, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

EU CURBS

The EU imposed curbs on economic aid and high-level meetings with Kurti’s government last year, holding him responsible for a flare-up of violence in majority-Serb northern Kosovo.

EU and U.S. officials have also criticised Kurti for not establishing an association of Serb-majority municipalities giving them a degree of self-government.

Serbia has insisted that the association should come before other steps to normalise relations and accused Kurti of blocking progress in their EU-backed dialogue.

In the interview, Kurti said he was ready to talk about "self-management" for Serbs but did not want to accept anything that would undermine Kosovo as a state.

He also said it was wrong of the West to focus so much on one issue when there was a broad range of agreements between Serbia and Kosovo that Belgrade had failed to honour.

Kurti said one such commitment was to open the main bridge in the ethnically divided northern city of Mitrovica.

The bridge links the majority-Serb north of the city with the majority-Albanian south and has come to symbolise division in Kosovo. It is currently open only to pedestrians.

Kurti’s government has been pushing to open the bridge to road traffic, despite Western warnings that it could spark violence, putting local people and NATO peacekeepers at risk.

Kurti said he was consulting about the bridge, including with local Serbs, but the debate could not drag on forever.

He said Belgrade wanted to keep the bridge closed because it wanted to split the majority-Serb north from the rest of Kosovo.

"I think those in Serbia who insist on keeping the bridge closed, they want to keep the dream of partitioning Kosovo alive," he said. 

"We need to open the bridge and to make Kosovo normal."

(Reporting by Andrew Gray; Editing by Conor Humphries)