Prime Minister Albin Kurti says that there can be no talk of an Association of Serb-majority municipalities by “abandoning mutual recognition”.

In an interview for KosovaPress, Kurti says that he does not accept that the Association be placed at the center of Kosovo-Serbia relations.

Kurti: I do not accept that the Association be placed at the center of Kosovo-Serbia relations.

“That document [draft statute of the Association] was proposed by the mediators, unsigned, and as such that document could not be sent to the Constitutional Court, therefore I believe that we should focus on the basic agreement, Article 7 talks about the self-management of the Serbian community. Article 10 should also be addressed there, which also talks about all the agreements that have been realized in the past and which are legally binding. Now, I do not believe that the center of Kosovo-Serbia relations is or should be the Association, it is mutual recognition. We cannot talk about the Association of municipalities with a Serbian majority by abandoning mutual recognition. So, at the center of the basic agreement is at least defacto mutual recognition. I do not deny that my predecessors signed the Association twice, in 2013 and 2015, I do not deny such a thing, but at the same time I do not accept that the Association should be placed at the center of Kosovo-Serbia relations," says Kurti.