Below you can find the full interview of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti for BBC World Service:
BBC: Let’s go to Prishtina, the capital city of Kosovo, and talk to the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Mr. Albin Kurti. Mr. Kurti, good morning.
Prime Minister Albin Kurti: Good morning.
BBC: Are you happy with this deal?
Prime Minister Albin Kurti: Yes, the talks we had in Brussels were not easy, but the result is satisfactory, because now we have a measure of reciprocity between Kosovo and Serbia for the freedom of movement of citizens on both sides of the border. We will not issue entry-exit documents and also Serbia is giving up issuing entry-exit documents which they have applied for 11 years now.
BBC: What do you think made the solution possible?
Prime Minister Albin Kurti: I would like to thank Mr. Borrell, Mr. Lajcak and Mr. Escobar for their tireless work in Brussels, Prishtina and Belgrade. At the same time, I want to thank the people of Kosovo for their support and patience. I believe that one of the main factors that contributed to this agreement is the fact that on 1 August of this year, for 19 hours, we issued 2,679 documents for entry and exit without any incident and without receiving any complaints. So the international mediators were very confident that we were not planning to confiscate Serbian IDs as the disinformation campaign in Serbia suggested, while at the same time on 31 July, 13 barricades were erected in northern Kosovo as a sort of pre-emptive overreaction, if I may say so. I believe that the responsibility of our policemen, who did everything smoothly and efficiently – people only had to wait 20 seconds to be provided with a document, in contrast to the 10 minutes to over an hour they had to wait on the Serbian side – convinced everyone that what we were doing was legal, legitimate and at the same time not directed against anyone.
BBC: Can I ask you about the other element of this dispute, which I mentioned in the introduction? The deadline when Kosovo will ask the ethnic Serbs in its territory to have Kosovar license plates is approaching. Will this happen?
Prime Minister Albin Kurti: In 1999, when Kosovo was liberated after the intervention of NATO, which stopped the genocide in Kosovo, the Serbs continued to have license plates of cars that were produced and issued and brought from Serbia to Kosovo. These license plates are a legacy of the Milosevic regime. However, after talks in Brussels, finally, on January 15, 2018, Serbia no longer had to produce or issue such license plates, and at the same time in September 2021, all deadlines for the use of such license plates and UNMIK – United Nations Mission in Kosovo license plates have expired. Therefore, since September of last year, even according to Serbia’s commitments to Brussels and the agreements it made with my predecessors, they no longer had to have these license plates.
BBC: You mentioned that deadline, will this deadline be respected?
Prime Minister Albin Kurti: We are giving them a two-month opportunity for all owners of cars with Serbian license plates to convert them to RKS – license plates of the Republic of Kosovo – and this opportunity will be valid until 31 October. Then hopefully we will no longer see license plates of cars that are not legitimate and legal. This measure as such is not directed against the Serbs, but is happening for the sake of the rule of law and legitimacy.
BBC: That’s obvious. Do you know and accept the concerns of the Kosovo Serb minority in your country?
Prime Minister Albin Kurti: Yes, I accept them. I know the political aspect. I know the social aspect of these concerns. But I also know them through our constitution; Chapter three, Rights of Communities and their Members. Five Articles of our constitution, from 57 to 62, offer guarantees of minority rights that you cannot find anywhere else in Europe. However, I am also offering some additional incentives, for example, in these two months, the opportunity to convert car plates, Serbs who agree to convert their car plates to RKS will be exempted from VAT, from customs and excise duty, amounting to around 5000 euros per car.
BBC: When you brought the list of what you would consider as an important measure, in this case, the EU negotiators, and that probably was provided to Mr. Vucic and they told him that this is what Mr. Kurti is saying, what response did you get from Belgrade through the EU?
Prime Minister Albin Kurti: Belgrade insists on some kind of compensation for the loss of Kosovo as they treat it, but they do not say it openly in public. Serbia considers to have lost Kosovo unjustly even though we have been occupied by them for a century. So, their demands are not for the rights of the Serbs, as much as they are for a compensation for the losses caused by the Milosevic regime, who went to war not only against the Kosovo Liberation Army and the people of Kosovo in general, but also against 19 NATO countries in the spring of 1999. I think that the wrong approach of Belgrade is that its focus is the rights of Serbia as a state and not the needs, demands and rights of the Serbian community in Kosovo.
BBC: I’m very grateful that you gave your perspective on what has been decided.
Last modified: August 29, 2022