Kosovo Establishes Relations With Israel, 'Breaking Blockade on Recognitions'

In a setback to Serbia's campaign to stop countries from recognising its former province, the Kosovo and Israel Foreign Ministers on Monday signed documents completing the process of mutual recognition – under which Kosovo will soon open its embassy in Jerusalem.

Kosovo Foreign Minister Meliza Haradinaj-Stublla attends the online ceremony establishing diplomatic relations with Israel, February 1, 2021. Photo: BIRN/ Emirjeta Vllahiu

Kosovo Foreign Minister Meliza Haradinaj-Stublla signed the document establishing relations with Israel in Pristina on Monday in a diplomatic milestone for the country and a setback for Serbia – which has long invested great efforts in getting counties not to recognise, or de-recognise, its former province.

Israel has become the 117th country worldwide to recognise Kosovo since the country declared independence in 2008 despite a campaign by Serbian diplomacy over the last couple of years, which Belgrade says convinced 18 countries to revoke recognitions.

Establishing diplomatic relations with Israel marks another step towards the implementation of the so-called Washington deal signed in September 2020 under former US President Donald Trump. Serbia has remained silent on the latest events.

“On this day, we are writing a new chapter in relations between our countries [Israel and Kosovo]. We have the same values of democracy. We call on other states to recognise Kosovo’s independence,” Haradinaj-Stublla said in a ceremony transmitted live in front of the Kosovo Foreign Ministry.

Her counterpart in Israel, Foreign Minister Gabriel Ashkenazi, signed the document in his office in Israel

Haradinaj-Stublla also thanked the administration of former US President Donald Trump and the former US special envoy for Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Richard Grenell, for brokering the Washington agreement of September 2020, “as well as the support of the new US administration for the Washington agreement, which has been shown by the new Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken”.

Also thanking the US, Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti at a joint press conference with Haradinaj-Stublla after the signing ceremony addressed the wider significance of the Israeli move. “We have broken the blockade of recognitions for Kosovo,” he said, referencing Serbia’s diplomatic campaign.

Kosovo will soon open an embassy in Jerusalem, which most countries do not recognise as Israel’s capital. A Kosovar Jew, Ines Demiri, is the new charge d’affaires.

Establishment of mutual diplomatic relations between Israel and Kosovo was one of the main points of the so-called Washington deal in September 2020.

Under the terms of the deal, which was sharply criticised in both Serbia and Kosovo, in deference to American interests, Kosovo also recognised the Hezbollah group as a terrorist organisation and pledged to start the process to retrieve and restore Jewish property looted during the Italian-Nazi occupation during World War II.

Serbia and its former province signed separate agreements with the US in Washington that mainly concerned economic normalisation between the two estranged countries.

But a BIRN fact-check story published in September last year also showed that the majority of the points agreed were not binding, since there were no guidelines as to how they would be implemented or by when.

Only one point contained a deadline – the transfer to Jerusalem of Serbia’s embassy in Israel by July 1, 2021. Otherwise, the deal does not specify when it enters force or whether it requires ratification by national parliaments, which, in the case of Serbia, domestic law says is a must.

While Kosovo is on its way of fulfilling all the Israel-related terms of the agreement with the US, Serbia appears more reluctant when it comes to moving its embassy to Jerusalem, also promised to the Trump administration.

In the Serbian version of the agreement, Belgrade, which already has diplomatic ties with Israel, promised to open an office of the Chamber of Commerce and a state office in Jerusalem and to transfer its embassy there by July 1.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said at the end of November 2020 that “an appropriate date and a suitable moment are being sought in this pandemic in order to visit Israel and open that [Chamber of Commerce] office”.

“It is being worked on, everything is almost over, we also have a person who will lead that mission, so I will visit Israel and open an office, and that is one of the points in the Washington agreement,” she said.

Before that, however, Serbia was sending mix signals on moving the embassy to Jesusalem. In September 2020, President Vucic’s media adviser, Suzana Vasiljevic, told Prva Television that the embassy decision was “not final”.

“That was discussed… The next steps will, of course, be discussed and it all depends … on Israel’s actions after that,” Vasiljevic said. “We have not accepted anything so far, nothing has been signed,” she said. “We will see how the situation develops and how Israel will behave in the future when it comes to their relationship with Kosovo.”

Asked on Monday about concrete plans to move the embassy, the Serbian Foreign Ministry did not respond to questions from BIRN by the time of publication.