A new round of dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia – at the level of chief negotiators – is expected to be held today in Brussels under the mediation of the European Union’s special envoy for the dialogue, Peter Sorensen. The meeting will take place after Sorensen’s visit to Pristina and Belgrade last week and it is learned that the bloc’s envoy will hold separate talks with Kosovo’s chief negotiator, Besnik Bislimi, and Serbia’s, Petar Petkovic.
A trilateral meeting between them is also expected afterwards. It is learned that the agenda of the new round will include the Joint Declaration on Missing Persons, which was agreed upon in 2023 by Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić.
Sorensen in Pristina: We will ensure that Kosovo and Serbia hold talks
The parties agreed on the full implementation of the joint statement on missing persons during a trilateral meeting between chief negotiators in December 2024 in Brussels.
The first meeting was scheduled to be held in January, but the Serbian side refused to participate due to actions to close down offices supported by Serbia in Kosovo.
Today's meeting will be the first within the framework of the dialogue for the normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo this year.
During his visit to Pristina on January 14, Sorensen said regarding the dialogue that "I have hopes that 2026 will give us what 2025 did not give us."
"What we're going to do is make sure the parties sit down and talk. We need to find a way to make that happen," Sorensen stressed in Pristina.
He said he would work to find a way for the two neighboring countries to hold high-level talks in an effort to normalize relations.
Two years without indictment for Banjska in Serbia: Radoićić with address in Belgrade
Kosovo and Serbia have not held a high-level meeting since 2023, following rising tensions between them due to an attack by a group of armed Serbs on Kosovo Police in the Serb-majority north in September of that year.
Kurti – who is expected to head the country's government for a third four-year term – has conditioned the continuation of the dialogue on the surrender of the suspect in the attack in Banjska, Zvecan, that left a sergeant dead, Milan Radoicic.
Radoicic was vice-chairman of the Serbian List, the largest Kosovo Serb party, when the attack occurred and claimed responsibility for it. Belgrade has refused to hand him over to Kosovo, and he is said to be at large in Serbia.
Serbia also has its own conditions in the dialogue, as Petkovic reiterated after the meeting with Sorensen on January 16 in Belgrade.
Petkovic tells Sorensen that progress in dialogue with Kosovo is “conditional” on the Association
The Serbian chief negotiator said progress in the bloc-mediated dialogue depends on Kosovo's willingness to establish an association of Serb-majority municipalities. Kosovo and Serbia already reached an agreement on a path to normalization, known as the Ohrid Agreement, in 2023, but are not implementing it.
Among the points of the agreement is the establishment of the Association of Serb-majority municipalities in Kosovo, but Pristina has not taken steps to fulfill this request./rel
