Towards normalization between Belgrade and Pristina? The leaders of Kosovo and Serbia meet on Saturday 18 March in North Macedonia to talk once again under the aegis of the European Union (EU), which has recently stepped up pressure for normalization between the former enemies.

The meeting on the shores of Lake Ohrid in the south-west of the small Balkan country comes after talks broke down last month in Brussels, where a European peace plan was unveiled.

Once again, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell will try to convince Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to reconcile their positions, more than two decades after a deadly war between Kosovar independence rebels and Serb forces.

The 11-article EU document states that both sides will "mutually recognise each other's national documents and symbols" and will not use violence to resolve their differences.

The text also provides that "Serbia will not oppose Kosovo's membership of an international organisation". It also proposes to grant "an appropriate level of self-government" for Kosovo's Serb minority.

Serbia refuses to recognise the independence proclaimed in 2008 by its former province, whose population of 1.8 million, overwhelmingly of Albanian origin, includes a Serb community of around 120,000.

Since the war, which ended in 1999 with NATO bombing, relations between Pristina and Belgrade have been going from crisis to crisis.

After the Brussels talks, Vucic vowed never to recognise Kosovo, adding that he had no intention of helping Pristina join the United Nations.

The Serbian president also warned, a few days before the Ohrid meeting, that he "had no intention of signing anything". The meeting "will be neither historic nor revolutionary," he said.

The Kosovar Prime Minister said he was optimistic about the possibility of reaching an agreement, adding, however, that the responsibility for a signature lay with the Serbian side.

National and religious cradle

"Whether we succeed or not, you know very well that it does not depend only on me," Albin Kurti told reporters.

Analysts point out that a possible signature would not necessarily mean immediate success.

"I expect both sides to accept the project," said Dusan Milenkovic of the Centre for Social Dialogue and Regional Initiative in Belgrade. "I can't say it will be heavy, because heavy will only happen when the project has been implemented."

Most of the previous agreements reached under the aegis of Brussels have remained unheeded.

Albin Kurti hopes that a pact will allow Kosovo to enter the UN and international institutions, a crucial demand for Pristina.

Aleksandar Vucic acknowledged that his government was under intense international pressure to sign, while assuring his public that he would not give up anything.

The Kosovo issue remains obsessive for some of the 6.7 million Serbs, who consider the territory their national and religious cradle, where crucial battles have been fought over the centuries.

In Belgrade, thousands of people demonstrated Friday at the call of nationalist parties to refuse an agreement that they said would amount to a "capitulation".

Many members of the Serb minority in Kosovo refuse any loyalty to Pristina, with Belgrade's encouragement. Especially in the north of the territory, near the border with Serbia, scene of frequent clashes, demonstrations and sometimes violence.

With AFP

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