Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić are set to meet for the first time since a deadly attack on Kosovo’s police and security force by a paramilitary group of more than 30 heavily armed nationalist militants on September 24.
NATO has sent 600 more peacekeeping troops into the Balkan region in October to mitigate growing tensions and the US has already urged Serbia to withdraw its military presence along the border with Kosovo to de-escalate tensions. On October 18, the EU parliament passed a resolution condemning the Serbian army’s military build-up at the border with Kosovo and urging Vučić to avoid any further violence.
The attack in Banjska, northern Kosovo, was led by Milan Radoicic of the Serbian List, an ethnic Serbian minority political party in Kosovo with close ties to Vučić. The attack raised tensions in the western Balkans to an unprecedented level.
EU and Nato officials have put together a meeting on October 21 hoping to get Serbia and Kosovo to agree a deal. Vučić’s meetings with Putin and Xi have sparked further concerns that Serbia is moving away from seeking EU membership and closer to China and Russia.
Vučić has not imposed sanctions on Russia following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, while Putin has courted support in the region to counterbalance the influence of the EU and Nato. In July 2023, the US treasury department announced it was imposing sanctions on Aleksandar Vulin, the head of Serbia’s Security Intelligence Agency (BIA).
The Ohrid agreement, endorsed by the EU and the US, falls short of what either country seeks. It makes no reference to when Serbia will be able to join the EU or when the five EU member states who have yet to recognise Kosovo’s independence will do so and open the path for Kosovo to integrate into the EU and Nato.
