Swiss host secret talks between Serbia and Kosovo – Eurasia Review
Switzerland has hosted discreet meetings between officials from Kosovo and Serbia to defuse tensions in the Balkan region.
In northern Kosovo, a standoff has developed with its Serb neighbors as an incident over car number plates escalated.
Members of the local Kosovar police resigned en masse and truck drivers blocked roads in the Serb-majority region.
That Newspaper NZZ on Sunday reports that the Swiss Foreign Ministry has arranged a series of secret talks between the two countries. The content of these discreet meetings has not been made public.
But Switzerland is using its traditional role as good offices to reach an agreement in the dispute.
Since 1999, Switzerland has been involved in NATO’s international peacekeeping mission Kosovo Force (KFOR) in Kosovo. There are currently 195 Swiss soldiers in the region.
However, the State Department believes that diplomacy is the right tool to alleviate the current situation where gunfire has been exchanged at individual hotspots.
Swiss MP Franz Grüter, who is due to visit the region as part of a fact-finding tour, told the newspaper that the standoff is similar to that between Russia and Ukraine.
“It cannot be ruled out that the same thing will happen in the Balkans and Serbia will invade Kosovo with the support of Russia,” he said.
But former Swiss Ambassador to Kosovo (2016-2020), Jean-Hubert Lebet, is not so concerned. “As an ambassador, I have experienced such Serbian provocations several times,” he said. “It was a bluff every time and I don’t see why it should be any different this time.”
The risk of a major action would be too great for Serbia, said Lebet. “NATO would strike back immediately and Serbia would lose any prospect of EU integration.”