An EU mediator has welcomed Kosovo and Serbia’s agreement on the final implementation of the 2023 declaration, which aims to help find those who disappeared in the 1998-99 war, calling it “an important step towards providing relief to families”.
The main negotiators in the dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo, Besnik Bisljimi and Petar Petković, at a meeting in Brussels mediated by the EU’s special representative Miroslav Lajčak, agreed on the implementation of the declaration on the missing from 2023.
“I am very happy that we have successfully concluded the negotiations on the operationalization of the 2023 Missing Persons Declaration. An important step towards finally providing relief to the families.” We will soon organize the first meeting of the Joint Commission,” Lajcak wrote today on the X social network.
“Now we can move on, and the first meeting of this joint commission will be held next month,” Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo Besnik Bisljimi said after the meeting, adding that Serbia promised not to obstruct the work of the commission.
Petar Petković, head of the Office for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Serbia, pointed out that “the last obstacle has been removed when we talk about the implementation of the declaration on missing persons”. He added that now “a joint commission has been agreed which will provide support to the working group chaired, as before, by the International Committee of the Red Cross”.
The EU announced on Tuesday that “a joint commission chaired by the EU Facilitator will be responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Declaration on Missing Persons”.
“It will monitor the cooperation of the Parties in the identification of burial sites and subsequent excavations; access to accurate and reliable information, including all relevant domestic and international documentation, the use of satellite data, light and detection and ranging (LIDAR) as well as advanced technology for the detection of mass graves, and respect for the rights of the families of missing persons,” the EU statement said.
The agreement “reaffirmed that the issue of missing persons is of humanitarian importance,” according to the statement, which emphasizes that “the progress achieved today is an important step forward in the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia and the implementation of the Agreement on the path to normalization from 2023.”
In April 2023, Kosovo and Serbia took the first steps to implement the verbally reached agreement on the normalization of relations in Ohrid, North Macedonia, establishing a Joint Commission to monitor the implementation of the Declaration on Missing Persons. The Prime Minister of Kosovo, Aljbin Kurti, and the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, adopted the declaration on May 2, 2023.
But in April 2024, the head of Kosovo’s Commission for Missing Persons, Andin Hoti, whose father is also missing, said he had not received a response to a letter he sent to Serbian authorities in June 2023 about opening the archives of a Yugoslav Army unit alleged to have participated in war crimes in Kosovo.
He pointed out that he did not receive any response to the letters sent to the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, expressing concern about the non-implementation of the agreement.
Today, Lajčak listed several different steps required for the implementation of the Ohrid Agreement, in accordance with the obligation of May 2, 2023.
They include de-escalation in northern Kosovo; responsibility for the attack on the Kosovo police on September 24, 2023 in the village of Banjska by Serbian armed attackers led by Milan Radoičić who is currently in Serbia; reintegration of Kosovo Serbs who left Kosovo institutions in November 2022; formation of the Community of Serbian Municipalities by Kosovo; recognition of Kosovo documents and symbols by Serbia.
The same conditions were stated on Tuesday by the EU Council for General Affairs, which also condemned the recent explosion on the Ibar-Lepenac canal, which could have left Kosovo without water and electricity. The chapter on Kosovo also states that “the EU will gradually lift the measures (against Kosovo) in line with other steps taken by Kosovo to de-escalate tensions in the north.”
In June 2023, the EU announced a package of “reversible” measures against Kosovo, saying it had failed to restore peace in the Serb-majority north.
