TIRANA, July 9 – During the second day of the South-East European Cooperation Project, local and regional media reported Albanian President Ilir Meta publicly reacted to Kosovo’s “forced” absence in the summit.
Meta, who spoke after Turkish President Erdogan and Montenegrin President Djukanovic, expressed regret that Kosovo representatives were not present because some of the participating states don’t recognize its independence.
“I want to express my regret for the fact that the Republic of Kosovo, our future chairman, was forced not to participate in this Summit. How can we claim to have effective cooperation where some of the participants in this forum do their utmost to exclude a nation and a neighboring state from benefiting from international cooperation and regional projects in such important areas as security, education, culture, etc,” Meta said.
In this context, he argued that Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was the summit’s host country, should have done its best to ensure Kosovo’s participation and that all other states should work on recognizing independent Kosovo as a reality.
“The Republic of Kosovo is an independent and sovereign state and should be treated with respect, first of all by its own neighbors,” underlined Meta.
Meanwhile, Kosovo actually rejected the invitation to the summit, considering the letter addressed to Bosnian Presidency chairman Milorad Dodik as “denigrating” , as Hashim Thaci was not called President of Kosovo, and Kosovo itself was designated as a footnote, due to some participating countries not recognizing it.
Right after Meta’s comments, Prime Minister of Serbia Ana Brnabic reacted.
“Our hosts do not recognize Kosovo. There are also some representatives who do not recognize Kosovo as a state in this round table. Representatives of Pristina’s provisional institutions are not here – this is the attitude Pristina has held towards the region and now it shows how interested the country is,” Brnabic was reported saying.
Actually, Meta was the only Albanian representative at the summit, as the Albanian foreign Ministry delegation also refused to attend.
Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has said his country didn’t attend the meeting because the invitation sent by the Bosnian presidency chairman Milorad Dodik, the longtime political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, did not treat Kosovo the same as the other participating states.
“Despite willingness to participate in the SEECP, the humiliating call by the current Bosnian presidency chairman prevented me from representing Kosovo at this meeting,” Thaci wrote on Facebook on Saturday.
Thaci said that Kosovo wants equal treatment with other participating countries.
“The behaviour of Bosnia and Herzegovina is unacceptable,” he added.
Albanian Foreign Minister Ghent Cakaj then announced that his country has cancelled its participation in the summit in Sarajevo in solidarity with Kosovo.
Dodik argued however that Kosovo was invited as a neutral entity, as at previous such meetings.
Like Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina has not recognised the independence of Kosovo, because the Bosnian Serbs oppose it.
The SEECP is intended to help its members get closer European and Euro-Atlantic structures by strengthening good neighbourly relations.
Bosnian Foreign Minister Igor Crnadak told local media that the boycott by Kosovo and Albania was “a serious blow to the process of cooperation.”
Milos Solaja, director of the Center for International Relations, said meanwhile that the boycott was “undermining the credibility of the entire process” .
“Regional initiatives [like the SEECP] are mostly a result of the EU’s desire to accelerate regional cooperation, and hence the EU accession process. But it is obvious that the countries of the region do not have a great desire to cooperate with each other,” Solaja told BIRN.
