Expert from Kosovo: Kurti Abandons Goal of Serbia Recognizing Independence

Albin Kurti (BETAPHOTO/STA/Daniel Novakovic)

Enver Hasani, a professor of international law and international relations of the “Hasan Pristina” University in Pristina and the first president of the Constitutional Court of Kosovo, believes that Kosovo Premier Albin Kurti made at least “five fatal errors for Kosovo” by accepting the Agreement on the path to normalization with Serbia in 2023.

“First: Kurti has abandoned the goal of Serbia recognizing Kosovo; second: he has recognized the right for Serbia to perpetually withhold Kosovo’s statehood; third: he has created a political and territorial autonomy for the local Serbs… political because the local Serbs are directly represented in their relations with the central authority as an equal partner, and territorial because the local self-management applies on the municipal territories, which are not just clear in the Serbs’ case, but cannot be changed without their consent,” Hasani wrote in an extensive analytical text that was published by the media in Kosovo.

According to Hasani, Kurti’s “fourth mistake is the formalizing of the position” of the Serbian Orthodox Church “which implies extraterritoriality, because it will function outside of any legal limitations of the Kosovo authorities, even more freely than in the territory of Serbia.”

“The fifth mistake” was that “Kurti’s agreements with Serbia are not finite: they lay grounds for endless dialogue,” and this “prevents all new recognitions (of Kosovo’s independence), because other countries view the issue of Kosovo as one of status, and not as (a matter of) dialogue for resolving the everyday issues and problems between two countries (Serbia and Kosovo) – which is what the dialogue represented before Kurti took over,” Hasani claimed.