US Balkans Envoy Says Necessary to ‘Move Away From the Narrative That Kosovo is Serbia’

US envoy to the Western Balkans Gabriel Escobar told Balkan news outlet N1 on Friday that it was necessary to “move away” from the idea that Kosovo is part of Serbia. The region illegally declared independence from Belgrade in 2008, violating the Serbian Constitution.

“I think we have to move away from the narrative that Kosovo is Serbia and move towards the narrative that Kosovo and Serbia are Europe,” Escobar said. “You have a common future and that future is rapidly moving away from the problems of the 1990s and quickly to the opportunities of the 21st century.”

He added that the “21st century will be one of economic opportunity for this region, where the Western Balkans become a driver of growth for the entire continent of Europe,” including in energy production, IT, and shipping. “The reality is that you will be linked eventually through regional economic relations.”

Escobar’s comments came amid a trip to Pristina, the breakaway region’s capital, and a meeting with the Kosovar government’s leader, Albin Kurti, leaders from the Kosovo Serb community, and Miroslav Lajčák, the EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue and other Western Balkan regional issues.

The meetings were aimed at resolving tension with Serbia over a plan to no longer recognize the validity of identity documents and vehicle license plates issued by Belgrade. Pristina says the move is in-kind, since Belgrade doesn’t recognize theirs, either. However, it aroused fury among the population of Serbs who live in Kosovo, many of whom don’t recognize the breakaway region’s independence.

The new ID rule was scheduled to begin on August 1 but was postponed for a month following Kosovo Serb protests.

On Thursday, Escobar and Lajčák also spoke with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić in Belgrade.

“Tough and long meeting just now with President Vučić,'' Escobar was quoted as saying on the Twitter account of Washington’s Belgrade embassy. “We appreciate the president's commitment to peace and stability.''

Indeed, Vučić also said that “We had no easy talks,” adding that “we will not give up our vital national and state interests, primarily the interests of our people, our security.''

“My impression is that all sides are committed to finding peaceful solutions. The message I am taking back to Washington is that I am optimistic that the sides will try to find a solution,” Escobar told N1.

“As long as we have a solution that is both peaceful, enforceable and durable and does not complicate the lives of people living in Kosovo, especially in the north, I think we’re going to be OK and I am optimistic that we’ll get there,” he added.

The territory was split from Serbia in 2008, following nine years of NATO occupation in the name of a peace process. The NATO intervention came amid the Yugoslav Wars, a series of inter-ethnic wars in the 1990s that were sparked by growing nationalism encouraged by the West in the decade prior. The wars ripped socialist Yugoslavia apart, creating six new countries, killing as many as 140,000 people and displacing an estimated 4 million people.

NATO claimed its intervention was “humanitarian” and aimed to stop an alleged genocide for which no evidence was found by an international response force. It was NATO’s first military action and violated its own charter as a defensive alliance, since no member state was attacked.

Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence remains highly controversial. Just 97 of the United Nations’ 193 member states recognize it as a country, including 22 of 27 EU member states and 26 of 30 NATO members. Nonetheless, Kosovo has pressed for admission to the EU and to NATO.