In a social media post, Chief Negotiator Dhuka hit back, writing: “The river flows forward. So does history.”

Drawing on her legal background, Dhuka said she felt compelled to provide a reminder about her Serbian counterpart’s reference to UN Security Council Resolution 1244, in a debate that began over a river.

“Resolution 1244 did not restore Serbia’s sovereignty over Kosovo. It established an international administration, withdrew Serbian security forces, set up a separate political process to determine Kosovo’s future status and, most importantly, did not predetermine the outcome of that process,” Dhuka wrote.

“Albania has absolutely no territorial claims against Serbia, nor any agenda for anything ‘Greater’, other than a Greater Europe, with Albania, Kosovo and, yes, Serbia too, together within it. Let us leave the ghosts of ‘Greater Albania’ and ‘Greater Serbia’ behind and send them into a well-deserved retirement,” Dhuka wrote, describing as “comical” the way the debate that began over a river had unfolded.

“Forgive my intervention, but, being inevitably a lawyer, I cannot stand by as I see an obvious need for a refresher, while my colleague, Serbia’s Minister for European Integration, introduces the metaphor of a sandcastle into a discussion that began over a river.

A pleasant metaphor, with one small structural flaw: it rests on such a selective reading of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 that it, too, becomes something of a sandcastle.”

“So, just to recap:

UN Security Council Resolution 1244 did not restore Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo. It established international administration, withdrew Serbian security forces, created a separate political process to determine Kosovo’s future status and, most importantly, did not predetermine the outcome of that process.”

“That is why, when Serbia itself asked the International Court of Justice whether Kosovo’s declaration of independence violated international law, the Court ruled that it did not.

Some may not like that answer. They may spend another generation or two debating it. But international law does not become more convenient by being selectively quoted, and history does not turn back simply because Belgrade continues to wait for it to do so.”

“On territorial integrity, we can all agree that borders must not be changed by force. That is precisely why bringing Ukraine into a discussion about Kosovo is not simply an inappropriate comparison; it is, in fact, an argument that works against itself.

Kosovo was not annexed. Albania has absolutely no territorial claims against Serbia, nor does it have any agenda for anything ‘Greater’, other than a Greater Europe in which Albania, Kosovo and, yes, Serbia are all part of it.

Let us leave the ghosts of ‘Greater Albania’ and ‘Greater Serbia’ behind and send them into a well-deserved retirement.”

Kosovo declared independence following a war, ethnic cleansing, NATO intervention, years of UN administration and an internationally mediated process to determine its status.

Since then, it has been recognised by more than 100 UN member states, including the overwhelming majority of EU and NATO members.

“And yes, of course, the Brussels Agreement matters. We do not question that. We continue to believe that the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities should be addressed, just as Serbia’s own obligations should be addressed within the dialogue.

Working closely with the EU, both my esteemed Serbian colleague and I have seen in practice that agreements are rather like good neighbourly relations: they work considerably better when reciprocity is not treated as an optional extra.”

“Yet there is something almost comical about how far this exchange has strayed from where it all began: water.”

“A threat was made concerning the flow of the Ibar River. Albania rejected the very notion that water could be used as a tool of political pressure. From that simple premise, the discussion somehow moved through Resolution 1244, territorial integrity, Ukraine, China and Cyprus, before eventually arriving at sandcastles.”

“A long journey for the sake of a river.

So perhaps we should leave the sandcastles to the beach and the history seminars for another day.

The Ibar should carry water, not geopolitical grievances.”

“And if we truly want to build our European future together, there is a far stronger foundation than sand: REALITY.”

/sm/