Ric Grenell, acting director of national intelligence under former President Donald Trump, told Newsmax on Monday that if the Biden administration doesn’t get a handle on a brewing political crisis between Serbia and Kosovo, “we could see war in this part of the world.”
“It shows the failure of the Biden administration in another part of the world," Grenell said on "American Agenda." "When the Trump administration was finished, we had a stable Balkans area. Kosovo and Serbia had agreed to move forward on economic normalization. Now what we see is chaos.”
Ethnic Serbs in north Kosovo enacted roadblocks Sunday following the arrest of a Kosovo Serb police officer, and violence broke out in the area. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said he would ask the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo to permit 1,000 Serb troops to be deployed in the north of Kosovo, saying ethnic Serbs are being harassed there.
Elections were scheduled next Sunday for north Kosovo after ethnic Serb representatives resigned in November to protest a decision by Kosovo’s government to ban Serbian-issued vehicle license plates. The election was postponed to April in hopes of defusing tensions.
The U.S. embassy in Serbia called Sunday for “everyone to exercise maximum restraint, to take immediate action to achieve a de-escalation of the situation, and to refrain from provocative acts. We urge the parties to work within the EU-facilitated Dialogue to resolve issues of concern.”
Grenell was appointed by Trump in 2019 as a special envoy for peace negotiations between Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008, and Serbia, which led to the Washington Agreement, normalizing economic ties between the countries. He not only placed blame on the Biden administration, but also on Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti.
“What has changed is not only the Biden administration but new leadership in Kosovo,” Grenell said. “Kurti is somebody who has rejected US assistance. Rejected every idea that Republican and Democratic presidents have put forward, but he is the new leader, and he's causing a lot of chaos.”
Grenell said the Biden administration should be calling on the Serbian government to stick to the Washington Agreement and Brussels Agreement, which normalized relations between the countries in 2013, even if Kosovo ignores them, so the situation doesn’t spiral out of control.
“It’s really important so that we don’t have conflict and we don’t have NATO forces involved, that we say to the Serbian government, just because Kosovo is not implementing these agreements that you agreed to, you still should,” Grenell said. “You should step up and you should absolutely try to ignore the violence that’s right in front of you. I know it's very difficult.”
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