Kosovo Serb people shout slogans during the protest rally on September 25 against Kosovo local elections | Photo: Beta/AP

Serbia is threatening to quit negotiations with Kosovo after the authorities in Pristina banned Serbian officials from traveling to Kosovo during the election campaign there.
Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic said he would question his own role in the EU-led dialogue with Kosovo if he was unable to visit Kosovo during the course of the local election campaign there.

“If I, as a signee of the Brussels agreement, cannot travel to Kosovo and invite Serbs to participate in the elections, the question of the need for my further engagement in the dialogue is raised,” he said on October 2.

Dacic was reacting to the announcement of the Kosovo authorities that Serbia officials were unwelcome in Kosovo during the election campaign.

Kosovo Foreign Minister Enver Hodzaj on Wednesday said that “not one Serbian official will be allowed into Kosovo” during the campaign.

Dacic and the Serbian Minister for Kosovo, Aleksandar Vulin, have had to cancel their planned visit to the mainly Serb enclave of Strpce as a result.

The Serbian leader has contacted European officials as well as the embassies of US, France, Britain, Germany and Italy to alert them to what he termed the “irrational, unreasonable, and almost senseless” decision of the Kosovo authorities.

The issue will certainly be on the agenda of the meeting of EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, Prime Minister Dacic and Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci scheduled for October 7.

The meeting concerns the progress of the implementation of the Brussels agreement and the run-up to the municipal elections due on November 3.

Kosovo last held local elections in November 2009, but the vote was boycotted in northern Serb-run municipalities, where local leaders were elected in a separate vote organised by Belgrade.

Under the terms of the Brussels agreement, Serbia agreed to halt direct support for separate institutions in northern Kosovo in exchange for an Association of Serbian Municipalities with broad powers being set up.

The four Serb-run northern municipalities in question are North Mitrovica, Leposavic, Zvecan and Zubin Potok.

In the local elections in Kosovo the authorities in Belgrade are urging Serbian voters to entrust a newly formed citizens’ initiative called “Srpska”.

Srpska has called the move of the Kosovo authorities a violation of people’s democratic rights.

“We are running for the elections on the invitation of our [Serbian] government, prime minister and president. Any decision to ban them from coming here means that a dictatorship by Pristina is being forced on us. We will not be satisfied with that,” Srpska stated in a press announcement. Balkaninsight