Drecun: Escobar, Lajcak Partially Trying to Eliminate Causes of Crisis in Kosovo

Milovan Drecun (Photo: Beta/Nenad Petrovic)

Chairman of the Serbian Parliament's Committee on Kosovo and Metohija Milovan Drecun said on June 6 that the U.S. and EU special envoys for the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, Gabriel Escobar and Miroslav Lajcak respectively, were looking at the situation in Kosovo's north wrong because they were only partially trying to eliminate the causes of the crisis.

"There is talk of withdrawing special parapolice units from three municipalities in the north of Kosovo. There are four municipalities there. The main problem is not to withdraw them just from those buildings, but rather to generally withdraw them from the north of Kosovo. If that is not talked about, the causes of the crisis are not fully removed," Drecun told public broadcaster RTS.

He also said he did not know what Escobar and Lajcak had agreed with Kosovo Premier Albin Kurti in Pristina on June 5, but that it "seems to me that there was no progress" in the matter of de-escalating the situation, or in the matter of the Community of Serb Municipalities.

Drecun went on to say that Escobar's statement that the Community would be formed "with or without Kurti" was not sufficiently clear to him, because the government in Pristina had to form the Community, i.e. that was not possible without the "frontman of the government."

U.S. and EU special envoys Gabriel Escobar and Miroslav Lajcak presented in Pristina late on June 5 a proposal to the Kosovo premier for a way out of the crisis in the north, noting that the situation needed to de-escalate, and that quick new elections in the north and a return to the dialogue on the normalization of relations were necessary.

Escobar and Lajcak are coming to Belgrade on June 6, where they will meet with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, prior to which they will talk with Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani and opposition leaders in Pristina.